Dying to Live
by WinterElle
Summary: The love between Elena and Elijah carried them through seven blissful years together. Now, everything has changed, unforeseen challenges around every corner of what has become a fresh life. Elejah
1. Chapter 1

Dying to Live

Elijah knew the exact moment when Elena was gone. Although when it struck, he convinced himself that he didn't understand what the tearing pain in his chest meant. He was in an early morning online conference with his business manager when the feel of something like cold steel sinking into his chest that drew a harsh gasp from him. He ended the call abruptly, clutching uselessly at his sternum with one hand. This was worse, so much worse than any dagger Klaus liked to wield.

It was raining. Spring was soaking the grounds in preparation for the long awaited kaleidoscope of blooming color that Elena loved so much. He stepped out onto the terrace hoping for a breath of fresh air that would make the throbbing in behind his ribcage stop. Instead, he stood massaging the center of his chest with the heel of one hand while the rain soaked, unnoticed, through his clothing. _Even then, he knew._

After a call to her went straight to voicemail, he went in search. Head tipped to the wind, he set out, following her scent and covering her commonly followed route with lightning speed. His efforts ended on a gravel road only a few miles from their home. The road, which was more a path than anything had a single dangerously sharp turn and a steep incline. The guard rail was in tatters. The pain chewed at him with sharp teeth, familiar now, as he found her.

The window was shattered, glass shards spread like sparkling rain droplets across her face, her hair. Her delicate olive skin was white now with pallor, her face turned toward him. Wide chocolate brown eyes that were usually so warm had grown cold and looked at him, past him to sights he would never see.

The light that was Elena had been extinguished. A cruel, capricious god had snuffed out the life in her eyes as anyone else might snuff out a candle with a careless breath.

Tears mixed with the rain as Elijah ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it away from her face. He sank to his knees in the mud next to her car, bearing a weight even he didn't have the strength to carry. She was sprawled over the steering wheel, her head turned at an unnatural angle. The crumpled car was closed in around her, a cruel formless tomb.

He wanted to rage, howling his sorrow at the sky and the storm. But no sound would come out of his open mouth as his shoulders shook with silent grief. There was no drama in her last moments. No fanfare or final, breathless words. There would be none of the last minute chances to save her as there had been so many times before. There was only silence.

Lightning struck at a distance and thunder rolled around him, an echo of the violence in Elijah's heart. It only now served to remind him that even the air had life, but there was none anymore for his love. His Elena.

He stood purposefully, pulling at the door handle and meeting resistance. The crumpled mass held her prisoner like a closed and greedy fist, even in death. That wouldn't be permitted. Not for even another breath.

He pulled at rippled metal with one hand. In the fury of his grief, he slung piece after piece of what was left of her car with both hands and all of his strength. His immediate goal was to free her from her lonely prison. Even if it was too late, it mattered somehow that she be free again.

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Damon passed the droning television wrapped snugly in a warm towel, fresh from the shower. The picture on the screen made him stop and listen when he would've normally just kept going. The images he watched were shaky, from a camera phone and caught his curiosity as he turned up the volume.

"An onlooker caught video of what appears to be a small stray tornado as it struck a wrecked vehicle on a rural road just outside Richmond in the early hours of morning today." The lovely blonde leaned close, her eyes alight as she went on with zeal.

"The sports car belonged to a local writer who some now say seems to have gotten caught in one of her horror stories. Elena Michaelson, who has published half a dozen bestsellers in recent years under the name E.G. Michaels, appears to have rolled her car several times on a gravel road just east of Richmond. It came to rest in a copse of trees at the bottom of a forty foot embankment. The debris you're seeing in the video is pieces of her car being tossed in all directions by a whirlwind that struck _after_ the wreck. Experts on the scene shortly after this video was caught don't believe that Mrs. Michaelson could've survived the wreck, but her body has yet to be recovered."

"Strangely, the only damage from the small tornado was to the car, with pieces being strewn as much as three quarters of a mile from the wreck site."

"We will bring you details of the story as they become available."

Damon had stopped breathing and sank to the floor as the reporter seemed to relish the details that shattered his heart. _It's not true. It can't be true._

The denial rang inside him….like a death knell from long ago.

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Elijah sank to the floor of their bedroom, his prize still in his arms. He couldn't help but search the broken face for signs of life. Even knowing there would be none. There were things that he should be doing, but he found himself unable to move from her side. He couldn't leave her alone. She had been alone for the accident, alone and afraid.

He sat for hours in the silence with her draped across his lap. His grief still made no sound. As time passed, it seemed just that he honor her silence with his own.

Those who also loved her joined his silence; their scents tracing up the stairs, one by one. He was not surprised. They gathered below, quiet except for the most necessary of words. He heard soft sobs from Bonnie as well as Caroline. The upstairs of their home was still as death. Everything was now as still as the heart that had once beat in his chest, but had ceased for all of time tonight. They seemed to be aware that he was there, up the stairs, but no one came. He smelled fear from a few of them, desperation from all of them. Their grief was a layer of snow before the ice settled in. It was cold and blanketed him, them, in sorrow.

Jeremy came. He, a man now fully grown, was weeping before he came through the door. The others tried to stop him, but he bolted up the stairs in search of his sister. He found Elijah sitting there, next to their bed, her broken body in his arms. He was covered in her blood. They both were. But the blood on her would be wiped away, she would be cleaned one last time, her body made ready for its rest.

Elijah would never be clean and he would have no rest. Only memories of her smile, her laughter and her scent would remain to haunt him until the sky grew forever dark and the earth faded away. The thought horrified him.

He looked up at her brother, who stood shattered, in the doorway. Ever so slowly, Elijah stood and placed her delicately on their white coverlet that covered their bed, pillowing her head with his hand. He felt the grind of severed bones as he settled her there. A broken neck had taken her from all of them.

Such a simple, mundane thing had stolen so much vitality.

He pushed her hair behind her ears, as she always wore it and turned to her beloved brother. His beloved brother and opened his arms.

Jeremy crossed the room and the two of them embraced. There was no shame in expressing sorrow this deep. The two of them, strong men, were equally broken. They wept together for the beloved wife and sister that she had been.

After a few moments of raging pain between the two men, they separated, tears still streaming. "Is there any chance that…?" He understood what Jeremy was asking. _No, Elena had not drunk his blood in a very long time._ She was lost to them all, and Elijah still he could not let her go. Sadly he shook his head and watched the dim hope drain from Jeremy's eyes.

Others began to come in then, emboldened by the shared grief. Damon came next. Elijah knew he had loved her too, perhaps as much as Elijah himself. This had been a bane to Elijah for years, this love the other vampire had for his woman. He had always worried privately that his Elena had returned the others affection with something warmer and more intimate than friendship. _Now it mattered not at all._ They embraced, tears flowing freely for the woman they both had loved.

Elijah found only grief, no anger, nothing left but this terrible burning pain within him that seemed to have no end. He had seen much loss in his long life, but nothing had ever brought him to this terrible silence.

His Elena, the woman he had waded through time for, was gone after only seven years blissful years together. Seven years in a thousand. He would do it all again for those seven years.

The others would say later, amongst themselves, that they had never guessed at the depth of feelings between Elena and Elijah. They had never understood the relationship until that day, when all was lost. When they watched the quietly dignified Original unravel like a piece of delicate lace over the death of their beautiful friend.

Bonnie and Caroline came to him, sobbing and held him as well. He was thankful for the sharing of this weight he carried. Their presence, the ones who had loved her so much and so well, made this, not easier, certainly, but shared and understood.

Bonnie took his hand shyly after long moments of sobbing brokenly into his mud covered and bloodied shirt.

"Will you let us clean her? Please? She would be horrified to be seen this way." Caroline, sobbing quietly at the door, seemed torn between an appeal and the urge to bolt at the question

Bonnie was right and he nodded. He should've done that, should've thought of it himself, but he was rooted in this place, next to her. Ashamed of his thoughtlessness, he mouthed "Thank you" to them and sat with Elena, holding her cold, now stiffening hand while they worked.

Bonnie filled three large bowls around the room with herbs and lit them with a glance. He smelled lavender, rosemary and sage. Funeral herbs. They were to be burned, a benefit to the dead and the mourning.

_How appropriate that Bonnie would not only know, but honor the old ways. _It made him grateful, but he thanked her only with his eyes. He had no voice anymore, it seemed.

He sat by the bed and held Elena's hand as the comfortingly familiar scents filled the room.

The two young women worked as the tears flowed. A large bowl of water, scented also lavender and soft cloths were their only tools. They cleaned away the blood and pulled away the clothing that had been torn and splattered by the collision. They carefully washed away any trace of the tragedy, their only sounds quiet sobs and gasps over the injuries they found. The bleeding had long ago stopped and now only had to be washed away.

The body was cleaned and wrapped loosely in a pristine white sheet. It reminded him of the death shrouds of old, so he refused to allow them to cover her face

He cared nothing for modern traditions, morgues, Medical Examiners or death certificates. He felt they are just modern and meaningless rituals that accompany death, like the herbs burnt while the body was cleaned from days of old. Elena's friends left him because they could do nothing else. Only the two Salvatores and Caroline remained as time ticked on.

Elijah finally moved onto the bed they had shared, lying beside her. He just needed to rest for a moment and then he would do what was necessary for her. He fell asleep with her cold hand in his.

He dreamed. It was the lake he and Elena had walked beside the day he confessed that the sun and moon curse was a fraud. It had only been a few years ago, but seemed like ages to him. He had been in love with her even then. She was seventeen perhaps, and alight with youthful beauty. He watched the sunlight skim over her hair, the light wind making it dance and play around her shoulders.

"You are so beautiful." He told her.

He watched her eyes widen, wary of him….or perhaps his words. In the next breath he understood her wariness.

"Only because I remind you of her." She meant Katarina.

It had always been a source of pain for Elena that he had known, and mistakenly thought he loved Katarina first. He understood her sentiment completely, feeling much the same about her friend Damon.

"No sweetling. You are beautiful here," A finger tapped her chest. "as Katarina will never be."

"I love you, Elijah." She said it so simply, as if it was the answer to every question. So much faith, had his little one.

"I love you, too, my heart." The words caught behind the lump that had closed his throat. Even when she had been a toy strew about by the wills of others, he had loved her.

"I can love you forever now." She was saying goodbye. Reflexively, his chest heaved.

Reflecting his turmoil, the wind began to blow around them and the sky darkened.

He watched in wonder as she looked to the sky and said quietly "No." The winds calmed and the sun reappeared as if answering her command. _How was that possible?_

"Yes, my heart." The words were only a tight whisper of sound and he swallowed hard before he went on, feeling she might need reassurance.

"Perhaps one day I'll see you again, get to meet with you wherever it is that you are now." The tears now, even in his dreams ran down his cheeks. He was trying to be strong for her when all of his strength had drained away in a rain soaked field, hours ago.

**Author's note:**

**Dying to Live is the final installment in a love that I firmly believe the writers of TVD completely missed out on. The story began with two other stories under my name. Making Amends and Leaving came before this one. If you haven't read them, and I have your interest, you might want to go back and read them first to understand what's come before.**

**It begins with an ending. I write what I know. Most writers do that, I think. For me, personally, my greatest joys always come in the wake of my greatest losses.**

**If my stories seem familiar, it's entirely possible that you have seen them before. I published on this site in 2012 under a name I don't use anymore. I am republishing here after edits and rework. My apologies for any confusion.**


	2. Chapter 2

Before he opened his eyes, Elijah felt a warm hand stroking his face gently. He whispered her name as he laid his own hand over it. Reality invaded quickly and his eyes shot open.

Sweet, loving brown eyes were scanning his face in the dimming light.

"You look terrible, sweetheart. What have you been in to?" The usually melodic voice of hers was raspy as she whispered at him, her eyes narrowed with worry.

Elijah's mouth hung open, but he could make no sound again. This time it was astonished wonder that stole his voice.

He had fallen asleep next to his dead wife and woken to find her watching him with concern. Elena was _concerned_ about _him_.

Reflexively, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her quickly against his chest, savoring the sound of her beating heart one more time. The pain in his chest, his new friend, was gone. He grew still, listening to her breathe. All the while, he still hadn't spoken, but the tears ran, as silent as he was, down his cheeks.

She must've felt him shudder as he wept into her hair.

"What's wrong?"

He couldn't answer. Processing what he couldn't possibly understand, the hows and whys, he came swiftly to one conclusion. The only conclusion that made sense.

"Blood." His voice was as harsh as the sound of a metal file, rasping out of him as he pulled away to look into her eyes. "You're going to need blood." It was the only explanation. He didn't know how she had drank vampire blood, or even whose blood she might've been exposed to and he didn't care. She was here, alive in his arms. And he would not -WOULD. NOT.- lose her again.

The practice of speaking after being silent for so many hours helped him find his voice again. He let out a bellow down the stairs for someone to bring them blood. He knew that the Salvatores and Caroline were still in the house because he could still smell them. He was not moving from this spot. He could not.

The door to their room was slammed open and Damon rushed into the room carrying two bags of blood from their refrigerator, his eyes scanning the room, wide and wary. Elijah watched them take in the scene, and Elena turned in his arms to see her friend. She grew very stiff against him and he thought perhaps she was beginning to remember.

"I don't understand. What's happened?" A hand to his face again, she met his eyes. "You look terrible. And I'm naked. What's….?"

"Your husband's had a bad day, Elena. Be kind." Damon's quiet voice, thick with joy, filled the silence.

Caroline and Stefan appeared in the door behind Damon and both gasped at what they saw.

"Elijah, as requested." Damon strode into the room and laid two bags of blood at the foot of the bed. He stopped and gave Elijah a purposeful look that suggested he make sure Elena make use of them as quickly as possible. Elena glanced down at what he had and the entire room watched her eyes change to the barbaric red, darkened veins around the edges surrounding them. Seeming to understand that they needed to be alone, Damon herded the other two from the room and shut the door.

Elijah said simply, "There was an accident, Elena."

Everything came back to her like a slide show in her mind.

Elena had started out her morning contented, to say the least. She had showered and then, when Elijah had been in the shower himself for several minutes she slipped in and closed the door. The room was thick with the steam. He preferred his showers very hot, saying it took quite a bit for him to feel the hot water on his skin being as naturally cold as he was. She'd long grown accustomed to it, and usually left him to steam up their room after she was gone. This time though, she had laid in wait.

These rendezvous had become a game between them. Elijah had started it, actually, though she doubted he hadn't really known it would become something so vital between them. They had been married for several weeks when she was called away suddenly for a meeting out of town. She had hated being away overnight. Elijah had evidently hated it even more, although he had never complained.

As Elena was coming out of her car around mid-morning after her night away, he had met her in the driveway. He'd appeared from out of nowhere, it seemed, taking her breath away with the rush of air around him before she could even get out of the car completely. With a hand pushing up the edge of the skirt on her business suit, he had nudged her between the car door and the open front seat sealing his mouth over hers in a kiss that sent her blood surging hard and fast through her veins.

"I missed you." Elijah said simply when he pulled away, leaving her breathless. He always spoke just what he thought, with no flourishes.

She had smiled into his eyes, moving her hands over his back.

"How much?" So he had shown her how much.

What came next made her never look at the hood, or the seat…-or the trunk for that matter-of her small sports car quite the same again. After that, _it was on_. She thought of it as "ambushing" one another. It could happen at any time or place, just so they were alone. She'd caught him while he was planting trees, him wearing dirty work clothes and gloves, in the gardens outside once. He had returned the favor by meeting her on the terrace while she drank her morning coffee. It didn't seem to matter what the setting was, there was always heat between them. And, thankfully, it never seemed to burn out.

Just that morning, as Elena had quietly opened the door and slipped into the bathroom during his shower, she'd been wearing only a sly smile and her own wet hair brushed back from her face.

She had opened the shower door and stepped inside, managing not to cringe at the heat of the spray.

He'd opened his eyes, surprised and then smiled at her. Pulling in close to him, she met him where he stood and reached on tiptoe to meet his mouth with her own. Then, nudging gently, she had pushed him backward. Moving her hands over him as they moved together, he had stopped in the corner, where the spray was less dense. Smiling up at him, she'd taken each of his hands, one at a time and hooked them over the edge of the tile, telling him with her eyes to not let go.

The rolling heat in his eyes told her he understood, but the smile he'd given her when she'd opened the shower door had grown wider.

With his hands occupied, she felt free to move over him at her leisure, and that's just what she did. She loved to watch the muscles ripple under his skin where she touched him. Although he said little at times like this, his body spoke for him and they communicated just fine. He hissed when she licked the water from his chest, his eyes closing. Pressing against him, she moved down, dropping slowly to her knees as his head had tipped up in something like submission. He didn't see, then, when she had leaned into the spray and filled her mouth with the hot water.

When she had wrapped her lips around him, hot water and all, his knees had seemed to go out from under him. She knew for a fact he'd called on his Maker a time or two.

It had been immensely satisfying to leave him breathing raggedly, still hanging onto the tiles and looking spent when she'd calmly strolled out of the bathroom wrapped only in a towel several minutes later. She didn't get much farther than the bed, though, before she was gently tackled and they had finished what she started.

Just the memory made her smile.

The rest of her morning hadn't been nearly as nice, though.

The torrent of rain overcoming her windshield wipers and making it impossible for her to see the road. The hard skid of the car on the gravel at the tight turn. The surge of panic as she'd turned the wheel one direction while the car had slid in the other direction was something she wouldn't forget any time soon either. The terror as the world spun around her made her eyes burn to remember.

Now, her eyes, her throat burned as she looked, transfixed, at the bags of blood that were lying at the foot of their bed. She turned and looked up at Elijah, finding him studying her with something crawling across his eyes like desperation. Forcing herself to focus on him, she took in the dried blood on his cheek, the mud splattered in his hair and the trails of moisture around his eyes, down both cheeks and to his throat. Tears?

Gasping raggedly, she finally understood and wrapped her arms around her husband with all her small might.

"Please don't." She said as she wiped at his cheeks with both hands. The more she worked, the more there was to wipe away and the burning behind her eyes overflowed too, their tears mixing together.

"Please. Stop." Elena would rather face that car, that guard rail and everything beyond it again than see her impervious husband with tears in his eyes.

"I know that you don't want this. But I won't let you go." He shuddered against her, moving even closer to her than he was already before he went on, his face tucked into her hair.

They had talked many times about her wish to see her parents again when this life was over for her. Elijah had quietly accepted her wishes at the time and not probed or pushed in any way. It had been easy then, when her leaving him had been some far off concept with no teeth to shred or claws to tear at him.

"I've proven in just a few hours that I _absolutely cannot_ live without you. I thought you were gone and there was only darkness and silence. The whole world just stopped, hoping…waiting for you to breathe again." He swallowed loudly and shivered again, his arms tightening reflexively around her. He knew it was selfish, even as he thought it. But it didn't stop the demand from rising up in him.

"By some miracle, you're here. I don't care how or why." He met her eyes and the tears flowed freely again between them.

"Please. Drink." The words were tight and pained as he said them.

"Please stay with me." He could barely get the words out around the lump in his throat that threatened to stop words altogether. Hands in her hair, he sought to overwhelm with his lips, tongue, teeth. Elijah was desperate to show her how very much he needed her.

"The transition." Her words were almost a question. For the transition to be completed, she had to drink human blood. If she didn't, she would be dead again in a few hours. She hadn't thought about the process, or its implications in years, safe in her love and the harmony of a peaceful marriage.

If she drank, her whole life would change. If she didn't drink, her whole life would end.

She met tear stained, red rimmed brown eyes and knew what she had to do. She couldn't hurt him, couldn't leave him…..not if she had a choice in the matter. _Not willingly._

After several moments of silence, Elena sat up, covered herself and turned to Elijah, who had grown warily still at what he read as determination in the set of her shoulders.

Picking up one of the bags from the foot of the bed and clumsily attempting to balance it in her hands, she asked "Will you show me how to do this without making a mess?"

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Damon, crouched next to the door, was waiting to burst in and force the blood down Elena's throat himself if Elijah wouldn't do it. It might cost him a good beating from her husband but _he'd_ do what had to be done. That was just his way.

Like Elijah, Damon couldn't face a day, or even another hour without knowing she was living and breathing in this world. So if he had to piss of the Original to do it, he'd do just that. And honestly, it would be a half-hearted beating anyway because everyone would hate him for what he'd done and silently thank him for it. He could live with that….being the scapegoat. He'd done it many times. What he couldn't do was live without Elena. Not completely.

Finally, hearing the resignation in her voice through the door about drinking the blood, he did a silent fist pump of joy in the air. He'd always hoped he'd see the day Elena joined the land of the living dead….whether she liked it or not. Breathing was better than not, as a rule.


	3. Chapter 3

Dying to Live, Chpt 3

Elijah could only smile as the blood rose in Elena's cheeks with embarrassment. He had always loved that about her, the occasional blushes. Her discomfort warmed his heart. He couldn't help it, but he was also wise enough not to mention it.

It had been only a day since Elena had completed the transition. They were sitting together next to the fire and he watched the glow of the firelight move along her hair, making it seem alive.

Leaning over to press his lips to her brow, he said, "I think this is where I should say _thank you_. You did _us both_ a service yesterday."

Elena gasped, her mouth hanging open for a second before she playfully swatted at him, covering one of her pink cheeks with a hand. The simple joy of the moment made him fill the room with deep, echoing laughter.

The two of them had put their head together to figure out how Elena might've been exposed to vampire blood. Since she had been around no other vampires in the last twenty four hours, it could only be his. They had reviewed every scenario looking for a time she might've accidentally, _and thankfully_ he thought privately, been exposed.

The two of them had come to only one conclusion, and then Elena's blushing admission had confirmed it.

Elena's visit that morning to his shower had to be the answer.

The purposeful frontal assault on his senses had been well planned, and well executed, in his opinion. She had overwhelmed him, ruled him, with tenderness. All sense had been lost to him in her warmth, her hands, and the unexpected heat of her mouth. He supposed it was then that he must've bitten his tongue. He didn't remember it. _He'd had other things on his mind at the time._ In the end, she'd left him nearly incoherent, panting in the corner like a tavern wench of old earning extra tips up against a wall in a back alley.

Seeing her sly smile over one shoulder as she left the room, though, he'd recovered some sense of his pride and rallied. Darting out to intercept her, he'd carefully wrapped his arms around her and sent them both tumbling to the bed where he'd kissed her, reigniting his own fires and feeding hers.

Elena admitted that when she'd brushed her teeth afterwards, there had been a pink tinge on her toothbrush. She'd explained it away to herself and gone on with her routine.

Tipping her chin with a finger so she would meet his eyes, he spoke from his heart.

"There is no need to be embarrassed, Elena. Your generous heart _saved us both_." Because he knew now he could not live without her. Now he no longer had to face the possibility of her death. But another specter, nearly as dark and terrible, loomed over them.

_Oh, how Klaus would laugh at him right now if he knew._

Given the opportunity to choose, he would've seen that someone else's blood was used to change Elena….Caroline for instance. Siring her himself could be disastrous to them both. Changing someone he loved with his own blood created complications that made his eyes burn if he thought on them for too long. But it had happened and he had to be grateful. The alternative was unthinkable. He would find a way to keep her…

The other problem to consider was the sheer power she will have inherited from him considering he did not sire others, ever. The burden of concentrated strength he would've been handing to another person had kept him from doing such a thing over the centuries, as his understanding of the nature of the process grew.

The adjustment was going to be a hurdle for Elena, he felt sure. But considering he had been mourning her need for warmth and his ability to provide it while he'd made the fire they sat beside, he had some adjusting of his own to do as well.

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Elena stood in her kitchen fighting back tears of frustration. It had been a week since she had made the decision that would alter the rest of her life and she was just beginning to grasp the breadth and the depth of those changes.

So far, in the last week, she had learned that her grip was impossibly strong. Something as simple as wrapping her hands around something could reduce it to dust. She had shattered her favorite bottle of perfume with one hand…two fingers even, just trying to use it. A day or two into this "process of adjustment", as Elijah liked to call it, one of the cabinet doors in the bathroom had come off the hinges in her hand. She had been trying to get a hairbrush for god's sake. Only that morning she had shredded a blouse trying to pull it over her head, reducing it to tatters and a silken puff cloud. Her days and nights were filled with these little misadventures.

Still thinking of her arrangements with her editor, the publishing company, she had tried to sit at her computer and at least try to finish what she'd started. She'd turned her keyboard into confetti in the first five minutes. How was she supposed to _work_ like this?

Elijah had quietly reminded her, while she had cried over the loss of her work that she was still thinking like a human. She was still trying to live her _human_ life and meet _human_ responsibilities. He said that although the previous chapters of her life….being human, would affect the chapters to come, the future was hers and she could decide its direction for the first time. When her emotional storm blew itself out, she understood what he was trying to say, and bless him, he was using writing analogies to remind her that she had _become_ the story now.

Standing in her kitchen, though, she had just snapped the handle off her favorite coffee cup picking it up off the counter. _What the hell? _Was her whole world made of dust and paper? Or was she really just _that_ strong? And how was she ever going to learn to _function_ this way? How did _anyone ever_ learn to deal with this and not make a mess of their home, their life and everything around them?

Tears slid soundlessly down her face. She kept hoping there was a bright spot in all of this.

Elijah rounded the corner and found her crying…again, and opened his arms as she rushed into them.

Her voice cracking as she spoke, she said, "I was just wondering if there was a bright spot in all of this and here you are." Settling into the warmth of his embrace, she wrapped her arms around him too. _How could she forget that being here with him was why she had done this? He was the reward._

"A bright spot?" She could hear the sudden smile in his voice.

"You have focused only on what you can't do to this point." He stepped back and took her hand.

"Let's go explore a little of what you _can_ do, little one." He was smiling as he led her out the back door and down the stairs into the yard.

In a wide open space, he gestured widely.

"How about some of those things you used to do at your football games." He'd made a point to come see her in action more than once, but had never mentioned it. There had been a great deal of soundless _watching_ on his part in those early years.

It took a minute, but she understood he meant when she was a cheerleader, the gymnastics. She hadn't done any of it, even a cartwheel, in years.

"I don't know about that….." Her voice trailed off as she struggled with the idea of looking foolish when she fell on her bottom.

"Try. For me." He smiled warmly and she couldn't say no.

Grimacing as she wondered if her body might've forgotten how a simple tumble felt, she stepped back, raised her hands and moved into position. With a deep breath, and a deeper dread, she vaulted up and folded her body, picturing the mechanics of a cartwheel and a back handspring.

She landed, and upright rather than in the heap she'd expected to find herself in, so quickly that she blinked in surprise. Intending only a couple of tumbles, instead she had done half a dozen and she was across the yard, several hundred feet from where she'd started. There was also none of the jarring pain she'd expected. Instead she found only a warmed, stretched feeling and the urge to do more.

Elijah was absolutely beaming. "I had to work to see you, you moved so fast."

In a half a second he was standing next to her, still smiling.

"Avoid me." He spoke in a staccato command, and reached for her. Instinctively, Elena dodged and vaulted away in two more somersaults. Elijah laughed and came at her again.

The two of them worked across the yard while he made as if he would strike and Elena avoided him automatically. When she realized she was moving nearly as quickly as he was, she halted in her tracks, frozen.

"Oh. My. God." Amazed, it was all she could say. He wasn't actually using his full strength or speed, but she had avoided his hands at every turn without any real effort.

He laughed.

"Now do you see?" He stepped close and wrapped both arms around her, pulling her to him. "There are things that you did before that will be more challenging now." She felt him kiss the top of her head.

"I can teach you, help you, to be able to better control your strength with time and practice. But this also offers possibilities you have not considered yet."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sitting on the stairs in the gardens, that had yet to be reduced to rubble, Elena sat several weeks later reviewing how far she'd come. She wore a flowing white sundress while she waited to test out some of what she'd learned.

Elijah's words about time and practice had proven true. After that, her training had begun. That was how she thought of it. He patiently taught her techniques for fighting that she had never even heard of or seen. He said that he hoped she would never have a reason to use what he was teaching her, but it was better to know than not.

They spent their days sparring in the back yard in a dusty whirl of mock battles destroying Elijah's careful landscaping. She was incredibly strong and impossibly fast, not as strong or fast as he was, but he insisted she was a close second to him or any member of his family. He said he'd not ever seen another as young as her that could move the way she could and her chest had expanded at the pride in his tone.

Evenings were taken up with her learning everything from battle and strategy to how to handle a cup. Elijah knew strategy like a Roman general from his days of fighting off Viking invasions in Britain and shared all he'd learned with her. He also showed her how to take great care with the things, and people, around her. She learned to hold cups and glasses and clothing again like an infant, or a convalescent. It was best to think of everything and everyone, like the soap bubbles she played with as a toddler, focusing on their frailty. The final test for her would be seeing Jeremy and his wife again, but she hadn't found the courage for that, afraid that she might hurt either of them with either her strength or the other problem she had.

The hunger followed her around like a shadow, burning the back of her throat and her chest, rising up without warning. She drank from blood bags twice a day to try to prevent any incidents. It was best when she drank it from a cup, warmed a few seconds first. Elijah shuddered the first time he watched her do it and she had only smiled. It was easy for her to grasp controlling her urges beyond drinking every day. Elijah said that he now believed she had developed a skill at compartmentalizing early on. It explained her ability, at such a young age, to accept some of the most savage parts of all things supernatural and not end up banging her head in a corner somewhere. It seemed that controlling the hunger around humans was a matter of compartmentalizing. Take the hunger and push it away, somewhere else, to be answered later.

Their nights were an entirely different matter. Most of them were spent moving furniture around…or reducing it to splinters. Elena had always liked redecorating anyway, she thought with a smile. It didn't take long for Elena to realize that Elijah had spent years being careful with her, treating her, even in their bedroom, like those soap bubbles she'd been so fond of as a child. But not anymore. He could let go for the first time with her and it was wonderful, adding a new element of passion to their marriage they were exploring together. Who knew it was take dying for Elena to learn to live?

She hadn't had time to think about writing in the whirlwind that had become her new life. But she'd spent a great deal of time thinking about Jeremy and all they'd been through together…all they had lost.

She and Elijah had also begun to work their way next through the emotional turmoil that involved becoming a vampire. Vampires were very emotional creatures. So they tended to feel things more deeply and sharply than humans did. When the transition happened, some vampires never made it with their sanity intact through the regret reflected in their human lives. He saw little in Elena's short life for her to regret or fear, but she found it all the same. He had held her while they had talked, long and hard. She had only temporarily been crippled by the pain.

Much of her pain revolved around Jeremy. She spoke to him on the phone nearly every day, but hadn't had the courage until today to test out what would happen when she saw him again, or how he might respond to her when they came face to face. What if he was horrified at what she'd become. He knew all too well the changes that would happen when someone became what she was now. Would he think she was a monster?

The other side of it was her worry about being around humans again. She had yet to feed from a living person, and didn't want her first experience to be losing control and feeding on her brother. Avoiding humans as much as possible had been her plan of action until she couldn't take it anymore.

Jeremy was just as eager to see her too. The last time he had seen her, she was dead and covered in blood. So today he was coming, with Elijah close by and her nerves rattled around while she waited.

Steps on the grass, yards away made her grow still. Her nostrils flared and she knew that her brother was close. Closing her eyes, she built a mental wall around any burn of hunger she might feel before she stood and turned.

Jeremy, seeing her, broke into a run and hit her full force, wrapping his arms around her. He was two heads taller than her and three times as big, but she kept her footing, her feet firmly planted…something she wouldn't have been able to do before the change.

He leaned back as she embraced him, running his hands and eyes over her, as if he needed to be sure that she was real. Tears were leaking out as he spoke.

"You're really okay, then." Jeremy's words were ragged and tight.

She nodded, fighting tears of her own.

"Hearing your voice on the phone is great, but this is much better." He wrapped her tightly again, lifting her off her feet for a moment and against his chest. "Please don't ever do anything like dying again, okay?"

All she could do was laugh and cry, her nose smashed against his broad chest. She nodded, secure in her brother's love again.

Elijah watched, a few steps away, as Jeremy finally got to see for himself that Elena was alright. She had worried so much about what might happen, how he would respond to her since the change, that he felt a surge of love and joy for her. Jeremy lifted her off the ground and into his arms, swinging her around with relief. There would be no rejection, no more fears or pain. It was hard won, but she had come a long way.


	4. Chapter 4

Dying to Live

Chapter 4

Damon watched the two of them and tried hard not to roll his eyes. He wasn't successful, _but he did try, after all,_ he thought. It was impossible to _get_ married people. The very idea of tethering himself to another, becoming responsible for them, completely baffled him. Doing it as a vampire, where the part of the vows that says "til death do us part" wasn't a comfort anymore…well it was unthinkable.

Everywhere Elena moved, Elijah's eyes followed her as he shifted in his seat for a better view of his wife from time to time. Damon couldn't help but notice. He knew they had been close before. Now those two were practically inseparable. _It was appalling._ Anyone would think they had become newlyweds again with Elena's change. If he thought on it too hard, it wasn't his eyes that would be rolling, but his stomach. So he decided to push that train of thought aside.

It would be hard for anyone to miss, though, that the couple was in their own little world, even as they entertained a room full of vampires that included himself, Caroline, and Stefan.

A few more and they'd have a vampire baseball team, he thought, one brow up as he fought back a snort.

Elena had asked them all to come together for the evening in her home. It was the first time any of them had seen her since the night she'd changed. She'd been careful to call everyone, but cautious of visitors, _"even cherished friends"_. Those were her words to Damon and he'd actually bared his teeth at his phone when she said them because swallowing his retort had left a nasty taste in his mouth. So he'd waited. Patiently. Sort of.

As Damon turned his attention outward, he realized that the group was discussing the changes in Elena, with some sort of unexpected speed and strength. Elena sat on the arm of Elijah's chair, and, naturally, his hand was at her waist. They were within arm's reach, after all.

Damon leaned forward, hands clasped together as he smiled before he spoke.

"So, how strong _is_ strong, anyway?" Elena turned, one of her brows up to mirror Damon's.

"Very." Elijah said, as if his opinion was unequivocal.

Damon sat back in his chair, meeting the Original's eyes.

"So the two of you have done some testing the waters and you've decided that she's stronger than expected. But you're bound to pull your punches. What happens when she's dealing with someone who doesn't take her wellbeing into considering? Someone who means to do damage? Will she be ready for that? How strong will she be then?"

He could feel Elena's frustration building, see it in the lines of her shoulders, the tilt of her head, but Damon kept going. _This was important. Building her ego up would only get her hurt, or killed. Surely Elijah could see that_.

"I've not seen her equal in one so young." Elijah's eyes moved over Damon, his expression saying that he believed Elena was stronger even than Damon.

"Not even close." Elijah said, suddenly breaking into a broad smile. "But perhaps I should let her speak for herself."

There was a rush of air where Elena had sat just only a moment before and Damon's eyes searched for her. He found her across the length of nearly two rooms, standing by the back door, hand on the knob.

"Come outside and play." She said in a loud, sweet singsong voice, but her warm chocolate eyes had iced over as they met his.

She knew he'd never turn down a public challenge, and now he was going to have to hurt her to make her understand. _Damn it_.

"I want to play, too." Stefan said quietly from the chair opposite Damon. Protecting Elena. From _him_. Again.

_How predictable,_ Damon thought. _Like he would actually hurt Elena_. Stefan _never could_ see the big picture.

He only wanted her to see that she wasn't invincible. Just a lesson, as gentle as he could make it and still prove his point; that was his game plan as he stood to follow her out the door into the darkened gardens.

Elena, Damon and Stefan were standing in a clearing near the gardens and the lights had been turned on. The guys were going to try to take her down. Elena reached down and gathered the length of her navy blue sundress with one hand, suggesting with only her smile that she could face them with only one hand.

Damon's eyes narrowed on her, annoyed as they hemmed her in. Stefan nodded at Damon as a silent message moved between them. She guessed they were agreeing to go easy on her because she was clearly clueless.

_They are patronizing me_, she thought as her irritation grew.

Stefan flew at her from the left, aiming a full assault and clearly intending to blindside her. Instead, it was like watching a film in slow motion. She saw him coming at her from six miles away it seemed. She could have easily evaded and been long gone before he touched her, but decided to wait until right before impact to reach down, kiss his cheek and step soundlessly out of reach.

Stefan caught himself just before a face plant ten feet away. "Okay, how did you do that?"

Elena laughed, she couldn't help it. She met Elijah's eyes as he chuckled quietly from the terrace above them.

While her attention was on Elijah, Damon took advantage and came up from behind. From his stance, Elena guessed that he intended to wrap his arms around her torso and neck, immobilizing her. He was faster than Stefan, and stronger. But Elena saw him coming all the same. More like three miles away, as compared to Stefan's six. She felt like a bull fighters as she stepped out of the way at the last half second and swatted him on the rear.

Fury bloomed in crystal blue eyes as he rounded on her and Elijah's roar of laughter could be heard across the yard. It had happened so fast that evidently no one but Elijah knew what Elena had done.

Damon was livid. Since they were already playing like children, Elena stuck her tongue out at Damon and he came at her again….with the same result.

"Alright, so you're fast. But what about strong? Enough with the evasive techniques." Damon was evidently still unconvinced.

She felt uncertain and said so. "I haven't learned how not to hit with full force consistently yet. I don't want to hurt anyone." Damon rolled his eyes and Caroline laughed from the terrace where she watched with Elijah.

"Elena," Caroline called from above, "The guys are bound to be stronger. I would say that the risk would be yours."

"But Elijah said that this was different…" Elena began, looking to the terrace, to Elijah for support.

"Bull shit." Damon had an ax to grind now.

Elijah snorted. Under his breath he said "Show them, Little One."

"Keep in mind that this was your idea…."

And so she did show them a bit of what she could do, if not what she was capable of. The guys came at her at once, hands and fists and feet moving with what would once have been alarming speed to Elena only a couple of months ago.

Elena moved like a dancer, avoiding Stefan and choosing the place that her impacting blows would land, After all, he was her friend and she would rather not hurt him. One blow to Stefan's abdomen and Elena felt a few two century old ribs break, effectively stopping him.

Elena turned on Damon, angry by then, with him especially. He couldn't just take anyone's word. Always Damon, he had to push. As he came at her, she landed three blows, one to his chest, feeling the crunch of three ribs beneath a fist, and two to that lovely face. She felt the cheek bone on one side and the jaw on the other give under the open palmed blows.

With hardly any effort, she did what should have been impossible.

Inwardly she wondered for the first time at the level of power Elijah held tightly controlled every day. If she was not really trying and able to do this against vampires that were two centuries old, what was Elijah truly capable of?

She left her guests lying on the ground in the back yard long enough to retrieve a blood bag for Damon and a large jar of fresh pig's blood for Stefan from the butcher.

Dropping the blood beside each of them, she turned back to the house, saying tightly, "When you're both ready come inside for a drink and we can talk again."

She knew all it would take was the fresh blood for them to heal and the time would give her a chance to get a handle on her anger. It occurred to her that a her trigger temper, which had never been a problem before, might be problematic now.

The two of them came inside a few minutes later, subdued.

A bruise still bloomed over Damon's right cheek and he eyed her warily.

For the first time, Elena learned that she was something new to most everyone she knew. She was young, and yet frighteningly strong and fast.

Elijah told them again that he had not intended to ever change her with his blood. He had planned to ask one of her friends to help with that, if the need ever arose. But fate had intervened there.

Regardless of what had come before, they all agreed solemnly that Elijah not making more vampire children was wise.

She could see, in the faces of each of them, that this was a new aspect of being immortal none of them had considered….the concept that after a while they should not make others like them as they grew in strength and age. The idea that they might not have a choice about walking alone into eternity held little appeal, and opened up a new respect for Elijah. This point was why Elijah had asked her to bring her friends together.

Restless, she went to the kitchen for more ice while the others asked Elijah questions she already knew the answers to. Damon followed her.

He came to a stop with the kitchen island between them, seeming at a loss for words. The bruise was gone from his cheek.

She spoke first, troubled.

"I….um…I lost my temper out there with you. I'm sorry." Still struggling with amplified vampire emotions, her eyes were awash with tears.

"Oh hell, Elena," He came close and wrapped his arms around her. Elena closed her arms automatically around her beloved friend.

"I'm an idiot. You know that. I just thought both of you might be overestimating what you could handle. I was wrong."

_Damon admitting he was wrong. What was the world coming to?,_ she thought.

"I hurt you." The tears rolled freely now and her shoulders shook.

"That's my fault, not yours, girlie. You did try to stop us. And can I just say that you pack one hell of a punch?" Now she was laughing and crying.

"We are all just going to be forced to reconsider what we've all known to be true about you before, that's all." Damon said huskily. They were quiet together for a moment.

"If anyone can handle all of that, Elena, you can."

"Thank you for being my friend." She spoke it into the black silk shirt that covered him. She was thinking that some might be too proud to have a friend as strong and young as she was around.

With her distraction, she didn't see what it cost Damon to say, "I will always be your friend, Elena. In a world that forever changes, that never will."

Elena leaned back in his arms.

"Oh and I'm sorry I marred your pretty face." He reared back laughing and Elijah chose that moment to step around the corner.

"You never did mention how you got his blood." Damon's statement was a question.

Damon started to laugh as blood rose to fill Elena's cheeks with a pink tinge.

_A blush_, Damon thought, grinning. He would now _have to know_ what happened.

"I believe I'll have to interrupt this now." Elijah said with a smile as Elena stepped out of Damon's arms and pressed a warmed cheek into his shoulder.

"As to your question, let's just say that Elena's unfailing generosity saved all of us from heartbreak." Elijah turned warm eyes on her as he wrapped an arm around small olive skinned shoulders.

Damon and his fondness for Elijah's wife were forgotten, for now.

**Author's note:**

**Yes, I know this is an Elejah story, but I have to be honest. It's wonderful to crawl into Damon's head and watch the way he thinks for me sometimes. He makes me smile…all that snark and a little dark humor here and there for flavor. Truly priceless.**

**Damon loves Elena. Always has. Always will. He is intimidated by Elijah, and forever careful not to step over too many lines because he cherishes being able to be close to her. Ultimately, Damon's noble in what he does, even if not in how he does it, in my humble opinion. He will set aside his own needs or feelings in a second to be what Elena, or even his brother, needs. But don't point it out to him, because that'll just piss him off and make him do something impetuous and selfish just to prove you wrong. He's as complex as Elijah is, but in a different way. I love that about Damon. **


	5. Chapter 5

Dying To Live

Chapter 5

_Okay_, Elena thought, _stealth really was as important as speed_, _just as Elijah liked to say. _Elena sat on a large tree branch twenty feet off the ground, her sneakered feet dangling below her as she listened carefully to the conversations below. She had chosen her place carefully, her scent carried up and away by the buffeting winds.

Elijah had told her, with a smile, that moving quickly wasn't truly valuable if she sounded like a herd of buffalo doing it. So she had listened to his advice about stealth and done what he asked, annoyed though she had been at the time.

She could admit, now, to herself that she wouldn't have been able to get this close without being able to move quietly. So, yes, Elijah was right again. She wouldn't be mentioning it, though, she thought as a small smile played on her lips. She couldn't let him think he was right very often. He might get cocky.

The guys, Damon and Stefan, had called looking for Elijah about half an hour ago. The Boarding House was ringed by a pack of werewolves looking to cause trouble. Since a werewolf bite was deadly poison to a vampire, they could cause plenty of that. They'd lost Ric five years ago to one of these incidents. Elijah would've come if he'd been able, but he wasn't. She'd been forced to tell them that he was on an international flight at the moment.

Elena had come instead, though she hadn't mentioned she was coming to Stefan when he'd hung up. She knew there would've been no end to the effort to stop her. They were just that way. But she wasn't burying anyone else if she had anything to say about it. And now, she had something to say about it.

Her heart still ached at the loss of Ric. He had been like a father to her. She had loved him very much. So he was another loss. There _would not_ be _any more _losses.

A red haired woman below seemed to be the one in charge, barking orders into an intercom that dangled from a cord over one shoulder. She was tall and broad shouldered, wearing a black tank, black jeans and her long hair pulled tightly into a swinging rope of a braid. The woman stood in the back of a lifted pickup truck, pacing back and forth in the bed.

This was the command center, it seemed.

Moving quietly to this position, Elena had seen at least a dozen already transformed wolves positioned in a half arc in the woods around the Salvatore home. Red, as Elena had started thinking of her, appeared to be in charge.

Red turned to a bald man, speaking quietly. "This should get it done. We kill these two for them and we go home. The council won't be able to stop us then."

Baldy leaned in and spoke near Red's ear, as quietly as Red had spoken.

"What exactly earns an ordered hit from the Werewolf Council?" He nodded in the direction of the house. "What did these vamps do, anyway?"

Red shrugged. "I don't know and I don't care. I'm here to do a job and earn the right to go home. Period."

Elena didn't take the time to wait for Baldy's answer. Killing people she loved was "a job" to these savages. Her vision dimmed, rimmed in red as the blood in her veins boiled and fury overtook her.

With a clear path through the branches below her, Elena dropped soundlessly to the ground next to the truck, landing in a crouch with one hand down. A half second later she sprung, taking Red's head between two strong hands and wrenching hard, she brought an end to savagery with some of her own. Baldy turned, eyes wide, but never got the chance to scream as Elena snapped his neck quietly as well.

Elijah had taught her to begin a battle by removing the command center first. It was like beheading the opposing force. Only Baldy ever saw her coming, and like him, no one even got the chance to scream.

There were twenty six werewolves around the Salvatore home behind various trees or other cover. She tipped her face to the wind and could smell them all now. Starting with the woman, she began to disassemble their ranks in the swiftest manner available working outward as she went. Almost clinically she decided that snapping necks was the cleanest way if they were in human form. For the transformed wolves, reaching into chest cavities and removing hearts was easier from the front than the back, but either way did work. It was a matter of getting just the right angle.

The entire effort took her about seven minutes. Without any command to move in or fall back the werewolves stood waiting, or pawed the ground in frustration. Easy prey. She kept one alive, a teenaged boy who had yet to transform, but she could smell that it wouldn't be long.

Taking him by the scruff of the neck, she and the boy stood at the door of the Boarding House and she knocked.

Stefan opened the door to find Elena standing there with the boy, who was clearly terrified, and blood dripping from her hands, splattered over her pink sweater and jeans. Stefan stood, speechless and frozen at her appearance.

"They're gone. All except this one. He's going to answer some questions for me." She shook the boy with one hand, holding him off the ground for a second.

"Do you suppose I could get a quick meal?" The exertion and the fury made the hunger claw at the back of her throat.

Stefan turned and went to the refrigerator with a grin. "Of course."

"Gone?" That was Damon asking from the study. She caught only a glimpse of him, gesturing with a glass of liquor. _Typical that he should be having a drink when they were facing death._

"She took them out, Damon." Stefan called back, wonder ringing in his tone.

Elena motioned to the boy while she opened the blood bag. It was cold, but it would have to do.

"With the full moon, he's not got long before he begins to change. I need answers." After a long swig, she looked at the boy, her irises expanding and contracting.

The boy grinned back at her, scorning her efforts. "You can't make me say nothin'."

The kid crossed his arms over his chest, all false bravado. Without a word she pushed a little further and found an enchantment in his mind that protected the information.

Pushing her will into the mind of another was a matter of precision and force. Elijah had taught her about this too. With this boy, however, a hedge of briar blocked the path into his thoughts. He would lose his life before he would ever be able to unwind the magic around him.

Elena went about disconnecting the boy from the enchantment without concern for what would be left of him as long as she got her answers. She couldn't be concerned. This boy would've killed them all, given the chance. She saw that when she stepped into his head. With one final mental shove and a blink she pushed through it. The boy's arms fell to his sides, eyes glazed over and transfixed.

Behind her, Damon finally rounded the corner and noticed what was happening, her appearance.

"God, Elena. Fierce much?" Her eyes were the barbaric red of a hungry vampire, the darkened veins, but no fangs. He found the effect haunting to say the least.

She rounded on him.

"These are the attacks that took Alaric from us, aren't they?" She never even had a chance to say goodbye.

"You never told me that they had hits out on the both of you. Ric got caught in the middle, didn't he?" Elijah must've already known, or Stefan wouldn't have called to ask for help.

Damon's face crumbled. He had hidden this from her long enough.

"We didn't tell you then because there was nothing you could've done about it."

"I guess I can understand that." If anything, despite her words, her eyes somehow managed to look even fiercer. She casually wiped her bloodied, drying hands on the boy's t-shirt. "But there's plenty I can do now."

She turned back on the boy. "Now, you little bastard, tell me about the leaders and the werewolf council."

Stefan said "We've tried that with others like him. They all have a spell on them that prevents…" But the boy was already spilling his guts, compelled to do whatever she asked. Stefan wrote down names swiftly.

Elena headed for the door, her thoughts already miles away. The pack leader was camped fifteen miles north waiting for the report from this group before sending in another. She would see that they never had that chance.

Damon's hand shot out, grabbing her shoulder to stop her.

"Elena, it's nuts to just waltz into a werewolf camp on your own."

"Don't get in my way, Damon. Not tonight." She stepped up and kissed his cheek, turned and took a step to do same to Stefan.

"I'll be back soon. Stay here." A crooked smile played across her lips at the irony. How often had they said exactly the same thing to her when things became dangerous?

"To hell with that." Damon headed out after her, stopping only long enough to ask Stefan to dispose of the boy werewolf's body a.s.a.p. The teenager had slumped to the ground, unnoticed, blood seeping from his eyes and nose.

XXXXXXXXXX

The werewolf leader sat, eating at a small table inside an aging RV. Before he had time even to stand, the metal above him ripped and rolled open like a sardine can. A small woman stepped down and through the hole. Long, dark, blood tipped hair spanned out behind her as she fell. Without warning, she dropped two hearts onto his nearly empty plate with a sickening wet slap.

"Guard one and Guard two." He had heard nothing. No alarm, no disturbance.

The small figure was a picture of contrasts. She was small in build and stature. She wore what had once been a pink sweater and figure hugging jeans. Her once casual clothing was saturated in werewolf blood. He could smell it.

"So….you must be Jack." The woman asked, her head tilted slightly in inquiry and her tone conversational. The red eyes and streaked face didn't really match the civility of her manner. What she looked was feral.

Jack knew all about feral. For that reason, he stayed exactly where he was, with no sudden moves. He had something to live for. Something very precious.

Her host didn't stand and Elena decided she would not be offended. He only nodded, wordlessly. His eyes were glowing yellow; quietly studying her. This was the night before a full moon. Some werewolves could change at this time, but all of them were stronger, more of a match for a vampire in their human form on this night than at any other time. Elena didn't care how strong he was at the moment.

Jack wore the garb of a biker, black jacket, black jeans, long stringy dark hair. There were a dozen tattoos that she could see just on the exposed skin around his neck and hands. There were undoubtedly more. Once, she might've found him intimidating. Not today.

Coldly she met glowing amber eyes across his table.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll sit." She pulled out a chair and made herself comfortable, crossing her legs.

"I could have ripped apart your entire camp by now." She was studying her fingernail. Jack fought a shudder at the casual way she put it.

"I believe you." He told her without preamble and meant it.

He was a natural leader, with genuine concern for those in his charge. His heart stuttered at the thought of the fifty or so people in this camp being lost to her small hands as his guards had been. All of these men and women were willing to die to accomplish their goals, but they shouldn't have to.

"I have come to talk to you about the council orders requiring the deaths of the Salvatores….Jack." The stark fury leaked out, making her voice deeper as the beast within her howled for more blood.

Ric was dead because of these people. Because of her.

A yawning hole of pain stretched its jaws wide, thinking to consume her. Grimly she pushed it away, for now. She would deal with it later, Elijah would help her. Now was not the time.

"It's not up to me what the council decides. I just follow orders."

She was standing again so fast that his long hair blew back. She was now leaning across the table, leaving bloodied hand prints on the Formica as she confronted him nose to nose.

"I'm going to explain what I expect of you, Jack." She spat his name as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

"I could compel you, but I won't. I want for you to remember every word we spoke so there are no excuses. I want for you to go back to your council. You tell them that it took me three deep breaths to break through the enchantment on your troops. And can I just say…A briar patch? Really? That's not even creative. Just a jumbled mess of thorns and dirty magic." She laughed and it was chilling.

"You tell them that I have the names of every council member along with addresses and family members. I will not fight grunts anymore. I cleaned out your first battalion at the Boarding House before I came here. It took me seven minutes and will cost me nothing but a change of clothes. There will be no second attack tonight, Jack, or I will deliver your head to Jonah's door myself."

Jonah Walker was the council leader. No one knew about Jonah…until now.

"This feud between a nation of werewolves and the vampires of Mystic Falls started twelve years ago because of mistakes I made." His eyes flickered in surprise. He thought she was a new player in all of this. He sure as hell had never heard of her, or anything like her.

"These attacks killed the only father I had left and have my friends fearing for their lives." Her red eyes glazed with tears for a moment.

"My father's heart would break at that thought, if he were here, of more death. Vampire or not, he was a man of peace. My love for him and his memory is the only reason you and the rest of your camp are still breathing. I'm going to give your council the chance to see reason. Twelve years and my father's death are enough. We have all lost, here."

Jack privately thought she had a point.

"I don't have the influence to change the council's minds." He told her.

"That's a shame, Jack." She made a face of mocking pity. Her bloodied hand pointed at his left hand and the ring there.

"I have your scent now. Tracking is a hobby of mine. There will be nowhere you could hide from me. If there's another attack on the Salvatore home or either of them, I'll come looking for you first, as my failed messenger. You have until the next full moon or the next attack on the Salvatores by weres to deliver my message. If you fail, I would suggest a heartfelt goodbye to your family. After I've visited with you, I'll be visiting the council members one at a time until there are none. Then your werewolf nation will scatter to the wind. This has gone on long enough. I started this and now I will end it, however you and your leaders choose. And that end starts tonight. "

"Tell them that they have no point of reference for what I'm capable of. They have never seen anything like me and will not even hear me coming, just like you and your guards didn't. If they want a fight, I'll finish it for them. What sort of threat could one small woman be, after all?" She smiled coldly and then she was gone. From above, through the hole, he heard her voice hovering above the RV.

"You have thirty minutes to clear your people out of here, Jack. Or I'll be back and deliver my message another way."

She waited quietly, sitting high in a tree a mile off while the camp scrambled below to gather and pack up. Damon found her there, crouched and waiting.

Twenty feet below, he said quietly, "I think Jack will need a clean pair of shorts." She chuckled and dropped down beside him soundlessly.

"Way to divide and conquer. We never could get close enough to leadership to reason with them."

She shrugged. "Elijah has been teaching me strategy."

Damon whistled and shook his head. "Remind me not to piss either of you off." Then his eyes grew serious.

"Actually, speaking of, there's something I need to tell you about Ric. When I'm done, you may feel the urge to get your hands dirty again." He was looking at the ground around his feet, a hand clasped tensely at the nape of his neck.

The tension in him told her this was serious, so she stayed where she was rather than moving close to offer comfort. Damon missed Ric just as much as Elena did. She felt sure it was still a source of great pain for him.

"About the night that Ric died...it was my fault, Elena." He sighed raggedly, breathing in remorse, and then breathing it out again.

"I called him, asked for a hand. There were so many and I….."

Elena interrupted him with a hand in the air. Pained blue eyes met calm brown ones.

"Damon, you loved him too. I know you did. You would've done everything in your power to stop them. No matter what happened, it wasn't your fault. I don't need details to know that."

She wrapped her arms around him and Damon felt peace seep into him for the first time in too long. She spoke into his chest.

"You're my friend. I trust you. I love you. Stop with the guilt already. You were not to blame. Ric was a grown man and would've been here to help. No one could've stopped him. That was just who he was."

Once more for good measure, _because bless his heart, he could be a little slow _she said again, "It was not your fault."

Damon found himself nearly sagging with relief, not that she wouldn't take her anger out on him, but that he was finally free of the guilt with a few honest admissions to her.

"You haven't changed so much as you think, Elena."

She only shrugged and turned away pointing herself toward the Boarding House again.

As they walked together, Damon broke the silence asking "That threat you made, about tracking our pal Jack to the ends of the earth practically….was that true? Can you really track like that?"

Elena shrugged. "It's true in theory." She gave a little smile. "But that werewolf won't know that."

Damon laughed, delighted.

"Elijah's been teaching you how to bluff, too, huh? That's some poker face you got going on there." Her grin widened and she laughed too.

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket. Grimacing at her bloody hands, Damon retrieved it for her with a devilish grin reaching as he reached into her jeans pocket, cupping her rear for a second in the process.

He answered it and put it up to her ear wearing a poker face of his own.

"Hi, there. Safe flight?"

"Yeah, I have had my hands full. Sorry about that."

"Right. Will you take a taxi? Good. You'll actually beat me there."

"No, I've been out playing with Damon and Stefan. I'll show you what happened I get home." Elena looked up into Damon's eyes, with a grin. "Yes, I know. Forever the drama."

She hung up with Elijah and Damon put the phone back in her pocket.

"Um, I won't ask how you will "show" him. I think the answer would creep me out. But I do need to know if this story will be edited for the faint of heart?" Damon figured he needed to know what story they were going to go with.

Elena grinned. "He and I don't lie to one another. Ever. He'll grumble and fuss, picking apart my strategy and telling me how _he_ would've done it. In the end, I'll be more efficient next time." She shrugged.

"I take it back Elena. You have changed." Because he would've lied to avoid what she described and he knew ten years ago, she would have too.

"Love does that, Damon."

Damon stopped in his tracks, a sly grin playing across his lips.

"Speaking of which...you never did really answer me about how you got Elijah's blood."

Elena's face reddening, she doubled back and swatted him gently on the back of the head, which earned a roar of laughter from him. Pointing herself toward the Salvatore house again, she stopped once or twice along the path to turn and glare at him, making him laugh more.

Damon was like a dog with a bone when he smelled blood.


	6. Chapter 6

Elena stood under the spray of the warm shower with her eyes blissfully closed when she grew still at the sounds from downstairs that found their way to her. She had decided to take a quick shower and borrow a change of clothes before she headed home to Elijah. She looked a little shocking, splattered from head to toe with wolf blood. The guys had supplied what she needed helpfully and left her to it.

It was unexpected, though, when Damon's voice wandered up the stairs, hushed to a near whisper, but detectable at nearly full volume by Elena, shower spray or not.

"You should have seen her." Excitement threaded through the whispered words, and she could hear something like pride in his tone. It made her smile and feel a little less like she was spying on them.

_It wasn't _her_ fault she could hear them from the other side of the boarding house and one floor up, right?_, she thought with a smile and a shrug.

"What did I miss?" She heard a scrape, like Stefan pulling up a barstool to sit.

"She took down two furred-out wolves, guards for the pack leader, with one hand each. They never even saw her coming." There was a jangle of ice cubes as Damon spoke. "And then I heard, didn't get to see, but heard, her slosh their respective hearts onto that pack leader's dinner table." He snorted out the last sentence before descending into a full blown laugh.

"I can tell you, I'm glad she's on our side." She could hear Damon's smile.

Elena smiled too while she scrubbed the blood from those wolves out of her hair. _She_ was glad someone was entertained tonight.

Stefan cut through her mirth like a razor with his next thought.

"Have you considered what we would do if she wasn't?"

She heard the rush of liquid and ice cubes again from Damon before he said, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty limber. I think I could probably pull off bending over and kissing my ass goodbye."

They laughed together for a second and Elena was giggling soundlessly along with them. But it didn't last long.

"But seriously, Damon."

"That's just nuts, Stefan. This is _Elena_ we're talking about."

"The Elena we're used to couldn't do the things this one can, Damon."

"But…."

"She was off the rails for a few tonight. You know it. I know it."

"That was because of Ric. She's still processing the emotions, man."

"She was a loose cannon. We know what that looks like in her now. And frankly, it scares the hell out of me. What if she goes off the rails and stays there, Damon? We all face that possibility every day, being what we are. So, let's imagine for a minute the nightmare that would be if Elena did it."

The conversation that followed broken her heart and made her tears mix with water raining down on her from the shower. The worst of it was that they were partially right.

Taking an extra few minutes to reassemble herself, she tried to prepare to face them and their fear with her best poker face. Pausing to take a deep breath, she breezed into the room, stepped in swiftly, but not too swiftly, and went for a blood bag without a word.

They both sat at the kitchen island, watching her closely. The silence bore down on her until she couldn't keep her peace any more. They were going to be afraid of her, evidently, regardless of whether they knew how well she could hear or not. The most frustrating part of it was that they had seen some of her capabilities while she worked to keep _them safe_.

_Ungrateful much, guys?_

"Look, I get it." She turned and faced both of them, her chin high. "I won't come back here. To your home. Ever. I promise."

"Elena! No one said anything about…." Damon's expression looked shattered, his voice tight. He stepped up and reached out to touch her, but she pulled away, her eyes hard.

"You think I'm dangerous. A loose cannon. Could go off the rails…etc., etc. Self-preservation being an instinct, friends or no friends…." She wasn't even mollified by the fact that they both wore mirrored expressions of horror as she quoted them.

So…yeah. They had their worst case scenario unfolding before their eyes. She was hurt and angry with both of them. _Off the rails_….not. She sighed raggedly, thinking what she wouldn't say out loud. _Hey guys, Elena. Is. Upset. But. Still. Not. Killing. People.…..Morons. _

"There is just one thing I'd like for both of you to consider. You've both been "off the rails" at one time or another since I've known you. So yes, I agree. Any of us is vulnerable to becoming a monster at any time. I get that. And as a human living through that, I can tell you that both of you completely terrified me at one point or another. But I never….NEVER considered turning my back on either of you."

"But this….this is different. This is me turning my back on you both now rather than beg for trust."

Moving toward the door as they both stood speechless, she took the knob in her hand before she turned back.

"If the werewolves return, call Elijah. One of us will take care of it. I don't make idle threats, or empty promises. As for the two of you….be happy. Be safe, because God knows that's your first priority." Her voice didn't break or waver for her last words to them. She was proud of that.

Her heart was shattered, but she managed to hold the pieces together for the first mile of her run homeward before the tears overtook her. She stopped, blinded, with a hand over her chest as the sobs rose and fell in the silent forest around her.

A whole new world of understanding opened for her at the memory of how hurt Elijah got in those early years whenever he thought she was afraid of him. She knew now that Elijah had loved her all along. So any sign of fear from her upset him. She began to understand him and what she'd put him through. It made her ashamed.

For her, this was like a knife in her chest that these two people she loved would think she could ever hurt either of them. The depth of the wound at being feared was something she had never understood until now. It felt like a betrayal, like they'd never really known her at all.

Crying and running was difficult. It made it hard to see where you were going. Her phone buzzed in her back pocket all the way home, but she planned on getting a new one now. Just one more step in her efforts at self-preservation. They could wound her, and she had a right to be safe from that, just as much as they did.

She stopped on her front porch, bent at the waist with her hands on her knees, sobbing brokenly. Elijah somehow knew and met her there, wrapping her in strong, comforting arms. After who knew how long, he whispered in her ear.

"What have they done to you, sweetling?" His deep voice was tight, the words enunciated carefully.

All she could do was shake her head, burrowing her face into his neck.

"Whatever it is, this officially all the excuse I need to finally rip the Salvatores apart."

Elena sputtered between a laugh and a sob until the laughter won out. _And it was her they were worried about? Really? _

After a minute of thoroughly confusing poor Elijah, she leaned back in his arms and took the lapels of his jacket in her hands.

"I need for you to promise me something." He searched her face, his alarm appearing to grow as his eyes widened at her intensity.

"Anything."

"Don't let me ever become a monster." Her voice was harsh from the tears, and the words came low and urgent. "If I turn my back on my humanity, become something horrible and cruel, you would be the only one who could get close enough to stop me." The tears leaked out again, silent this time, as she met his warm, loving eyes.

"Promise me you will kill me first."

He pulled abruptly away, turning his back on her.

"You don't know what you're asking." He choked the words out around a throat that had closed on him. _He had feared this._

"I know exactly what I'm asking, Elijah. I did this to be with you. If I became someone else, you wouldn't want me, and I wouldn't be able to stay with you. You were the goal. The prize in all of this. If I ruined that, going on a killing spree….I can't live with the terror that thought brings me, Elijah. Right here, right now, I'm myself. Sound mind and body and all that. Only you could save me from this if it ever came. I want for you to stop me." She ran hands across his back, trying to take some of the sting from her appeal. But he didn't turn to face her. Instead, she watched his back round out, as if bearing a weight too heavy for him.

"Please." The tears overtook her again, turning her word to a strangled, gasping plea.

At the sound she made, he turned again, pulling her swiftly to his chest, tucking her head under his chin.

"Yes." The word was a growl.

"I promise. But you're wrong. There will never be a time that I won't want you. But yes, I will do what you ask, no matter what it would cost me." Strong hands moved over her back as he spoke, bringing the peace only he could bring.

"Now tell me what those boys did to you that you feel the need force this promise from me so I can know why I'm killing them both."

She laughed for half a breath before she realized he wasn't kidding. The she shook her head against him again because he wouldn't give her the space to lean back and meet his eyes.

He was livid. In the lines of his hands, his shoulders, just the space around him, she could feel the hot anger coursing through him like nothing she'd felt from him since the day he'd mistakenly thought she was leaving him.

"It's not really their fault." His hands stopped their stroking and bunched to fists against her back. "They're right to be afraid, honestly. I just overheard some things. Plans for if I ever turned on them."

His entire body clenched and a shudder of fury tore through him.

"I will show them who they should fear." The growl came through clenched teeth.

"No." More urgency from her got his attention and he did move away just enough to see her eyes.

"That will just be proving them right, Elijah. I know they're not your favorite people. Neither of them ever have been. But I still love them both like family. No matter what they say or do, I will always care. And I've lost too much of my family, Elijah. We both have. Please."

_I hate it when she's right_, he thought. He'd been looking forward to feeling the snap of bones as he ground them both to dust. He took her, his gentle hearted wife who struck fear into other hearts, into his arms again. Swallowing hard on the bitter taste of his fury, he kissed her, sipping her warmth and her strength and her tears.

He'd much rather kill anyone who dared to hurt her, but he would be the one hurting her if he did. So he would burn off the passion boiling under his skin another way. Up and into his arms she went and he turned to carry her into the house and to their bed.

He would sooth away the pain for a while and show her healing. She was his treasure, his prize. Just as she'd said he was hers. Those beautiful words rang in his soul, assuring he would never forget them. Regardless of their context, they were precious to him.

He would remind her of the treasure she was with his hands, his lips and his body. This much he _could_ do.

He could make her forget, if only for a little while, how much love mingled with fear could wound.


	7. Chapter 7

Dying to Live

Chpt 7

Elena crept in and made herself comfortable on the floor next to the bed. She was learning to step lightly into a sleeping mind if she wanted to remain undetected. There were advantages to playing an active role in another person's dream. Although she couldn't "read" the other person's mind, much of what they did or said in their dream state was very telling because the normal filter of their actions was absent. Thought became action in dreams. At this point, she had been working to fine tune her skills with Elijah's help.

Constructing a dream was an entirely different from waltzing into someone's already active dreamscape, past the wall their subconscious mind built to protect them. For someone like Elijah for instance, who said he didn't usually dream at all, the work had to be subtle or he would notice immediately that things were different than in the waking world and become aware almost immediately.

She decided to use a memory and see if she could get a little further without being noticed that way.

Elijah stood outside the Mystic Grille feeling foolish as he stared solemnly at the entrance, his heart bathed in dread. He was trying to gather his nerves so that they didn't rattle around him quite so much. He was sure he jangled when he walked at the moment. She would remember him as calm, reserved even, and largely unaffected by everything and everyone. As it stood, even he didn't recognize himself. His dark eyes were a little wild, his hair mussed.

In reality, he was anything but unaffected.

A cool smile, some pleasantries before she railed at him. That was all. He could manage that, couldn't he? He looked critically at his reflection in the plate glass window, willing himself to be at peace. He needed to be able to seem unchanged by the year and twenty two days of her absence from his life. Or at least to _seem_ that way.

She was one girl. Yes, that was true. But, in truth, for him she was _the one girl_. But the opportunity to face her again, perhaps make some amends, had to be handled with the upmost care. It was a stepping stone and he needed not to trip over it. Not now.

A year. It had been a year since he had heard her voice, heard her say his name. They had parted angrily, which was the worst of it for him. Hopefully that chapter would come to a close tonight after she had a chance to express some of the anger she no doubt still felt, perhaps they could talk again, maybe even become friends. He would take anything that would end the silence.

He forced himself through the door and into the bustling crowd of humans. A scan and he found her, watching the door for him. He nodded, as casually as he could, and headed in her direction.

Sliding wordlessly into the seat across from her, he decided she looked beautiful. He had known she would. Her rich, honeyed hair fell over her small shoulders like a living cloak. She wore pink, a favorite of hers, this time as a sweater. She also wore jeans and boots that reminded him of children dressing up to pretend at being fully grown. Her small stature would forever make her seem childlike, no matter how hard she tried to be otherwise.

Rather than the pleasantries and greetings he was expecting, Elena searched his eyes with her own before she said,

"You've been following me." He tore his eyes from hers abruptly feeling like he was the one being hunted.

"I dream about you all the time." She stood as she spoke and moved around to slide into the seat he was already occupying.

"See….Damon used to do this thing with dreams…." He didn't meet her eyes, searching in the tight clasp of his hands for something to say. At least she didn't sound angry. It was more conversational than anything.

Sitting now, beside him in the booth, she slid closer and waited for him to look at her.

When he did, she said, "I think you might be in love with me."

_Why couldn't he get his throat to open?_ There were a hundred things he could say. He could deny it, he could….._well, maybe there weren't a hundred things he could say._

After a minute, he did finally speak.

"I can only imagine how that might make you feel, having become the fascination for a monster, Elena."

She smiled. Smiled. It warmed his heart….and completely confused him.

When she reached up with both hands to turn his face toward her, his eyes closed involuntarily at the contact. The pads of her fingers felt so warm and smooth and soft against his skin.

While his eyes were closed, she leaned in and brushed her lips to his. Breath stopped in his chest and the entire room fell silent. Or maybe it just went silent in Elijah's head before desire became the hard strike of an anvil ringing its song in his head.

Hands came up to her shoulders and held her close while he deepened the kiss and she moved against him, almost eagerly. He explored her mouth, tasting the corners and warm, hidden places while she made a sort of thrumming throbbing sound in the back of her throat.

When he pulled away to search her eyes, she spoke again.

"I'm in love with you too, Elijah. And don't call yourself a monster. You're more human than any man I've ever known."

All the things he had ever hoped to hear from her one day. All in one sitting. He pulled her close and just held her while he tried to calm his breathing.

Speaking the words against his skin, she made all breath and the whole world stop.

"Will you take me home and to your bed, now? Please?"

What did a man do with himself when everything he'd ever dreamed of spread out before him at one sitting? Well for Elijah, he shook. His hands shook, his frame shook. He was sure he'd never felt quite so vulnerable and happy at one time in his long life.

Finally, he stood and took her with him.

"Yes, Elena. I think we should do just that." His voice sounded as shaken as he was and she laughed, pulling closer.

"I love you so much it hurts, little one." The words were a husk of sound, spoken into the waterfall of her chestnut hair.

"And I can't think of anything or anyone but you and this, Elijah. I love you, too."

"You're sure?" _God, he didn't want to ask_. To tempt fate or give her the chance to change her mind. It was insane, but this was an insane day and he forced himself to ask, to be honorable one last time before he did as he pleased.

She pulled away, looking up into his eyes. Her brown ones shown with something he'd only dreamed of ever seeing there, and for him. All for him.

"I've made mistakes, Elijah. We both have. You won't be my first tonight, and I'm sorry for that. But I can promise you that you'll be my last. Yes, I'm sure."

The beauty of those words made him pull her close again.

"God, Elena."

"Take me home, Elijah. Please."

Elijah woke trembling. The power of this dream seemed to require it. He didn't dream, either, as a rule. So there was only one explanation. When he rolled over, looking for her, she met him halfway and swooped in on him like a bird of prey.

"I love you." She whispered, pressing fevered kisses to his face and neck.

"That was you." He didn't have to ask. He knew. She nodded, unsmiling.

"That's how I wish that meeting had gone from the beginning. A little honesty on my part would've saved us both months of pain and confusion." She ran the pad of her thumb along his lower lip as she spoke. "But I guess I was still a little intimidated by you then."

"You really think those things?" He pushed her hair back from her face so he could see her more clearly and noticed that his hand still shook a bit.

She seemed to understand what he was asking and nodded slowly as a smile lit her face.

"You are more human than any man I have ever known." Elena kissed the end of his nose, before she went on. "There's not a single thing about you I would change."

The dream served a twofold purpose. It was meant to be believable and to reassure him of her love for him.

Over the last months, Elena saw that he had become her constant companion. He didn't leave her side again after the flight that took him out of reach the night the werewolves attacked the Salvatores.

The two of them had been close for years, but never anything like this. She loved it, loved being with him, so there was no complaint. But his motives worried her. Again, he seemed to be poised for something she didn't understand. She couldn't ask him without the concern that he might take it wrong, but if it was uncertainty that drove him, hopefully she could bring him some comfort with loving reassurance.

Nearly every corner of their life together had changed, after all.

He did those things for her without even thinking, the kindness and wisdom so much a part of him that he didn't seem to even have to think. The situation with her friends was a perfect example. He saw that she was hurting and encouraged her to make peace with the people she loved. After some discussion on the topic, she took his advice to heart and reached out. She hadn't just pulled away from Damon and Stefan, but from all of her friends.

Elena gathered her nerve and called Bonnie from the house phone. She still wasn't willing to distribute the cell phone number to anyone yet. Baby steps.

Bonnie seemed pleased and surprised to hear from her. She said, yes, she'd love to meet her for lunch later that day.

And so it began. Elena sat with Bonnie eating French fries and talking about old times and pretending that they had talked more recently than six or seven months ago. Elena waited to smell fear in her friend, steeling her heart against it, but there was none. After an hour, two drinks each and a plate of shared French fries, Bonnie said only "I have missed you." Her hazel eyes had filled with tears and Elena's had matched them, tear for tear.

"I'm so sorry." Elena had cried over her friend's hands. Bonnie smiled through the tears.

"We're okay now, aren't we?" Elena could only smile and nod.

And so Elena reached out to Caroline in much the same way. Caroline, being Caroline, was much more vocal about the whole thing and mad as hell. They met at The Grille in Mystic Falls because Caroline still lived there and it was pretty much the only game in town for restaurants.

"So nearly six months without a word. God. Elena. I thought we were friends." Caroline was railing at her. No fear here either. If anything, Elena was the one who should be afraid while Caroline metaphorically roasted her over an open grill.

"I know, Caroline. I think it's all the changes. I thought everyone was waiting for me to go on a murdering spree. Everyone was afraid of me and I couldn't be trusted…..that's the way I felt. I was hurt and angry." She reached across the table and took her friend's hand. "Too much too fast, I think. I'm sorry."

Caroline appeared mollified. "It's my turn to say sorry. I know I wasn't supposed to, but I called them." Caroline was looking at the door.

Damon walked in and Elena stood up. "I can forgive you, but I won't trust you again any time soon." She left Caroline sitting and moved toward the exit.

Elena walked right back out of The Grille. Damon was at the door and she just pushed past him, using her shoulder to move him out of her way.

"Elena, please." On closer inspection, he looked ragged around the edges. Since when did Damon ever look ragged? He was thinner, and there were lines and angles in his face that hadn't been there six months ago. Was he ill? She pushed the information aside, determined not to care.

"Careful, Damon. It's best not to piss me off."

And then she was gone.

The next morning Elijah went to get the paper and returned with a grin.

"Elena, honey, there's a package on the doorstep for you. I didn't bring it in, wasn't sure if you'd want me to. But you might go check the expiration date. The packaging looks a little worn."

She found Damon asleep on their porch swing. Considering the opportunity this posed, she took it with both hands. Let him be afraid, damn it.

The wall into his mind was taller than Elijah's and darker. She built the door, with a pretty brass knob because it seemed to fit. She turned the knob and stepped into Damon's dream.

He was sitting on the window seat in her room from when she was a teenager. The bed was stripped and everything was gone. He had a brown teddy bear of hers in his hands. He looked up at her and didn't recognize her as anything more than part of his dream. She could control that, too, according to Elijah. At any point she could identify herself and the dreamer would recognize her as reality. But she wasn't going to do that.

"You won't talk to me." Damon told her.

"No. I know. I'm angry and hurt." She shrugged and sat on the bed in front of him.

"You won't let me make it right."

"What could you say, Damon, that would be the truth?"

His eyes filled with unshed tears. "I could tell you that I love you. That I've always loved you. Even when you married someone else."

Her eyes filled too, then. This was the last thing she would want for him. "If I could free you from feeling this way, would you want that, Damon?"

"Free me? You mean I wouldn't love you anymore?"

"Right."

"No. You brought me back to my humanity. I don't want that to change. I don't like who I was without it."

"I could make you want to let me go." It would take compelling him to do it, but she would do it in a second if it would save him pain.

"No, I don't want that either." He looked up into her face. "What I want is for you to forgive me. Forgive Stefan too. We didn't mean any of it. It was a guy conversation, badly timed, but just guy stuff. We never thought you would actually hurt any of us." He looked down again.

"But you hate me. I saw it in your eyes yesterday. Ten years ago I would've charmed and harassed you until you talked to me. I can't do that anymore. You won't let me near you."

His dream self was also ragged around the edges like he had been at The Grille.

"Damon, when did you eat last?"

"I can't eat. Elena hates me. So now I have really lost her." He was talking mostly to himself for that and back to holding the bear in his hands again.

_Oh. My. God._ He had stopped eating. She went to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, tucking her chin over him.

He sighed out the warm rush of words. "Not real. Nice, but not real because Real Elena hates me."

Quietly she stepped back through the door in the wall of his subconscious and found, thankfully, that he was still asleep.

She rushed upstairs, got dressed and pulled her hair back. With a nod at Elijah, she went back to the porch. She was carrying a bag of blood and a glass of bourbon. He still slept.

She sat on the ground in front of the swing and shook it just a bit. He didn't stir. Evidently he wasn't sleeping well, either.

She shook his shoulder. "Damon?"

Crystal blue eyes flashed open. He tried to sit up, but her sitting on the ground in front of the swing prevented it, as she had known it would. His knees went where she was sitting. He would skull her if he tried sitting up right now.

She smiled at him and he looked wary. "I brought you breakfast." Blood in one hand and bourbon in the other.

"Elena, listen." He was trying to gather his thoughts and get a word in before she threw him out. His eyes didn't seem able to focus. He looked like a lost little boy and it broke her heart.

"It's okay." His blue eyes flashed up to meet hers, still looking uncertain. "I got upset. Vampire emotions. I'm still dealing. I'm sorry." She kissed his cheek, and smoothed his hair with a gentle hand.

"You look like hell, old friend. Here. Eat. There's more where that came from."

She moved away so he could sit up.

Not one to just take anything at face value, Damon asked "You looked mad enough to murder yesterday and today you're feeding me breakfast?"

"I was hurt pretty badly. It hurt to think that the people I loved were afraid of me. When I heard it from you two, I thought everyone felt that way and no one had the nerve to say it. Now, I see that even the two of you didn't really feel that way. I'm an idiot."

She stood and took a step toward the door. She wasn't expecting him to, but he moved very quickly to intercept her. His arms wrapped firmly around her from behind to stop her from going back into the house. She wondered if he thought she wouldn't come back out.

"Yes, you are an idiot." He swallowed over and over, tucking her head under his chin from behind..

Leaning close to her ear, he said "Please don't do that ever do that to me again. I can't take you hating me. Just talk, even if it's yelling, that I can take. Not the silence. Okay?"

She leaned back into his arms and nodded, fighting tears.

"Can I tell you a secret?" She smiled up at him. He needed this, for her to trust him with something.

"You can tell me anything."

"Come on. I'll have to show you."

She took his hand and stepped into the sun. They went out far into the yard. It was a beautiful day.

She said only, "This is very cool. Watch."

She reached down and started to wiggle the daylight ring she wore off her hand. He was horrified.

"Oh God, Elena. Stop!" He reached out, trying to take her hand. Instead, she put the ring in his palm and smiled at him, putting a finger to her lips.

Damon's blue eyes were wide with a mixture of horror and surprise. No fire, no burning. Nothing. She could walk freely in the sun like any human.

"Elijah is the only other person who knows."

He reached out as if to throttle her with both hands.

"You are insane, I swear." He sputtered. "I thought that you were trying to….What the hell? Elijah needs a tighter leash for you. Doing that to someone…good lord."

His hands wrapped loosely around her neck. She kissed the tip of his nose and laughed.


	8. Chapter 8

A few weeks later Elena was making her morning coffee in the kitchen when she heard the familiar rumble of Damon's old car coming up the road to her home. The ancient blue mustang sounded like death with a carburetor. It was unmistakable and made her smile. She'd asked him once why he didn't buy a fancy Italian job or a respectable German status car and he'd announced himself offended by her implications. He told her he loved the old mustang even as she aged. So he puttered around in a car he could've run faster than to illustrate loyalty. Typical Damon, smirking to himself over a joke only he knew.

She met him in the drive, dressed in her robe and house slippers.

"I heard you coming. Well, most of the county heard you coming." She teased.

He gave her a blue eyed withering look before his handsome face split into a grin.

"Coffee?" She gestured toward him with her half-filled cup.

"You know I hate coffee."

"Yeah, that's why I offered…." She grinned wickedly as he stepped out of the car. _At least things were back to the way they'd always been now. No awkwardness, no more silence,_ he thought with relief. _Elena couldn't hold a grudge for long, thank God._

"I wish this was a social call, but it's not. I just got off the phone with Stefan. I was in town and I headed right over because this concerns you. Do you remember your friend Jack?"

Damon filled her in. Jack had appeared with a group of werewolves on Salvatore land an hour ago, but only Jack approached the house and in broad daylight. There was no violence or threats, Jack appeared to want to negotiate somehow. He was asking for the female vampire…_the scary one_.

Elena pulled a face at the description. "Yeah, I guess that would definitely be me."

Damon chuckled at her discomfort.

After a word to Elijah, Elena dressed in her running clothes. Her running tended to be faster and more violent as time went by. She had found that her clothes became ripped and torn very quickly at the speeds she used, and running shoes didn't hold up for long. Anything that dangled was a potential hazard to whatever might catch on her, pulling down small trees, fences. So her garb had adjusted over time. She wore black leather pants and a tight black tank with a Harley symbol on it. Her shoes were combat boots with a three inch thick wide and sturdy heel. Her hair was tightly braided into two braids, one on each side of her head. She had started out with her hair loose, went to French braids, and now this. The closer and tighter it was, the less likely to catch on something and pull.

Damon whistled in appreciation when he saw her and grinned evilly. She wagged a finger at him and smiled back.

The fifteen minute run was over too quickly for Elena's taste. She didn't relish another confrontation with the pack leader. She really had been doing a very good job of forgetting the entire incident, actually. So this reminder, in the form of a meeting with Jack wasn't something she would relish any time soon.

She spotted easily the aging RV that had been Jack's a little less than a year ago. It was parked just inside the property line that belonged to the Salvatore Boarding House. There were ten other RV's also parked, lined along the property with no movement whatsoever from the entire group. She could smell the tension in the air. Damon wasn't letting her go by herself this time, so they both approached Jack's RV.

She knocked on the door for a change and Jack answered immediately. His eyes widened warily when he saw her and her companion. Jack backed up making room for both of them to enter wordlessly. She had asked Elijah why she hadn't needed an invitation to meet with Jack the first time and he explained that the RV was a temporary housing, not a home. For the same reason she wouldn't need an invitation for hotel rooms either.

"What's brought you back here, Jack?" She had crossed her arms across her chest.

"Do you have a name, by any chance?" His tone was light but reminded her quietly that she didn't have to be rude. Elena managed to push away the discomfort and not to flush in answer under the hard appraisal of eyes that were still amber colored, but didn't glow anymore.

"I do. I'm Elena. This is my friend Damon Salvatore."

"I appreciate very much you're seeing me, both of you." Jack settled into his seat on the makeshift couch. He looked older than when she had seen him last. Probably thirty, but who knew how werewolves aged, so she couldn't be sure. There was new gray in his hair and lines in his face that hadn't been there a year ago. His face was clean shaven, that was new, and his hair was short now….also new.

"What is this about, Jack? Is your council rethinking their position of peace?"

"No, Elena. I'm not here on their behalf at all." Already tense, this surprised her and she leaned forward in her seat, too swiftly evidently. Jack tensed and recoiled from her proximity in the confined space.

"Why are you and your people here then, Jack?"

"Before I go there, I have to ask you a question." He shifted on his seat a little and leaned forward. "You said before that you were responsible for the Council's enmity with the vampires who live here. Can you help me understand how that's possible and yet none of us have even heard of you?"

Damon laughed, loudly and openly as Elena's face flushed.

"Oh, this is rich." He said when the sputters stopped at her discomfort. "Can I tell him?"

Elena shot him a narrow eyed dirty look and nodded.

"Our little Elena wears responsibility like others wear jewelry, Jack….even when it's not hers to wear." He was still grinning as he settled back, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Little Elena here, at the ripe old age of sixteen and still entirely human, made a deal with a devil…." She graced him with another narrowed look, one eyebrow up, but he went on. "that none of us was aware of."

"She promised to trade her life in exchange for the protection of all those she loved for a short period of time." He shrugged broadly. "That….God knows why….included Stefan and I."

"We brought a werewolf here to politely ask some questions." It was Elena's turn to laugh. _Tying someone to a chair and forcing knives through their legs during a fevered interrogation wasn't exactly polite, but she wasn't surprised that Damon would call it that._

"We had no idea that this Were held some significance to the Council at that time. Somehow they got word he was here, took offense, and sent a pack….an honor guard, I think you call it….to retrieve him."

_An honor guard? Who the hell had they had here?_ Jack wondered as the dark haired male went on.

"So the pack surrounded the house, pushed in through the windows for an attack and, I presume, retrieval mission. But Elena's devil appeared from out of nowhere." Elena sat back, determined to keep her mouth shut and fascinated with Damon's version of how the whole thing went down.

At the pause, Jack grew restless and asked, "And this devil did what exactly?"

Elena spoke up then. "He tore through them like a chainsaw through warm butter."

Damon filled in the blanks with a crooked smile. "The end result was that they Council figured out their honor guard had fallen at the hands of vampires, at our place. A long series of attacks and counter attacks followed, one of which took Ric's life." His voice unexpected caught at the mention of Ric. _He would never quite get over that loss, he was sure._

Jack's mouth hung open for a second._ An entire honor guard, highly skilled. The oldest and the strongest among their entire nation. Ripped apart by a single "devil"? What the hell had this girl been dealing with? And no wonder the Council had remained furious for twelve years. This answered his questions. He needed to know if real, honest peace was an option between the vampires of Mystic Falls and the Council. What he was about to ask would cement war and he didn't want any more blood on his hands if this was ever likely to be resolved. Clearly, from what they told him, there would never be peace here._

_ One question remained, though._

"What happened to this "devil" and your deal with him?"_ Definitely not someone Jack relished the thought of meeting in a dark alley. Best to be aware._

Damon laughed. "I like you, Jack. You ask the best questions." He turned and looked at Elena, still smiling. "That's the best part. She married him."

Jack looked quickly to Elena for confirmation. She only smiled and shrugged.

"So you really did give your life in exchange for the safety of the people you loved, just as you promised."

Damon leaned back in his seat, roaring and snorting with laughter._ Yes, _he thought._ He'd not thought of it that way, but yes. Elena did just that._

Elena looked more uncomfortable and the narrow looks Damon was getting were turning nastier the longer he laughed. He couldn't help it though._ This was perfect._

"It wasn't like that." She sounded defensive and Damon laughed more.

"He says he loved me, even then. He would've done anything to keep that promise, regardless of anything I might've promised in return."

Damon grew still as he absorbed this new piece of information. Elena didn't talk about her relationship with Elijah. Damon usually appreciated that. _But Elijah had loved that green, inexperienced girl, too? Really?_

This new little fun-fact put a whole new light on some of the things that had gone on all those years ago. Damon imagined that dagger Elena had contrived to sink into Elijah's chest all those years ago had bit much deeper than his heart. It also made Damon think about how Elijah would've felt when Elena betrayed them all by removing it and cementing an agreement between the two of them privately. He had to give the guy props for being single-minded. Damon wouldn't ever believe that Elijah deserved her, but he'd certainly suffered in the process of winning her heart. He had to give the guy that much.

Elena leaned forward in the silence that followed her last statement, determined to fill it.

"So help me understand what this is all about, Jack."

"I'm hoping you'll help us where the council won't."

"Explain."

Jack took a deep breath looking for how to give this strange woman the Reader's Digest version of what he hoped for.

"A year ago we were new to the area. We come from out west and had been brought here by the council. They gave us a protection spell of some kind and sent us out to kill vampires in Mystic Falls, Virginia. And then you happened." He shrugged.

"I had expected we would be released and return out west to our lives. Things didn't turn out that way. The spell that protected us also bound us to this area. We can't leave. I've asked the council to remove the spell for over a year, but they always refused. I found out last week that the reason they have always refused is because they don't know _how_ to release us. The magic that the witches working with the council used is too strong. I've been to every witch and fortune teller for a one hundred mile radius. No one can undo it. We need to be gone from here, and we can't leave."

"What happens when you try?" Damon asked.

"Engines fail, tires blow, we've tried booking flights and every flight we're on gets cancelled. I've tried walking out and ended up arrested for vagrancy….a dozen times, right before I hit the western Virginia state border."

What Jack described was some very powerful magic indeed. Elena remembered the briar patch in that boy's mind. It would infiltrate everything eventually, if not controlled or removed.

"Which comes to why I needed to come here with my pack." He looked to Elena then. "You are apparently the only creature walking around that can overpower this spell."

Elena thought of what was left of that boy's mind after she had torn the spell out by the roots. She didn't want to ruin Jack's hope, so she kept that image to herself.

She sat back in her seat. She needed to know if the risk was important enough to take.

"Why is it so important to you to leave here, Jack?" Damon was watching her very closely, faintly surprised that she was asking questions rather than just jumping in to help as he had expected.

"I thought you might ask that." Jack looked down the hallway and called out to someone. A small, pale girl came around the corner. Her eyes were sunken, her skin gray. Elena smelled imminent death on her. She appeared to be about eight.

"Elena, this is my daughter, Millicent."

The little girl made a face. "I'm Milla, Daddy." She protested in a high, sweet little voice and Elena's heart broke.

"Yes, sweets, I know. Thank you. You can go play now."

The little girl looked at her curiously.

"Can I sit with the lady instead?"

Jack turned wide, frightened amber eyes on Elena. Elena met that fear and winked. She scooted over on the couch, making space between herself and the arm of the couch closest to Jack. Patting the space in invitation, she found the space filled very quickly by a small, frail piece of humanity.

Milla sat beside her with a huge, innocent smile. Elena's still heart trembled in her chest in answer.

Jack appeared to gather himself and continued.

"Milla has….,"

Milla interrupted shyly. "Can I say it Daddy?"

Elena watched a ragged warrior's eyes glaze and fill as Jack told his daughter, "Of course you can, sweetheart."

Milla appeared very proud as she announced "I have ETP- ALL. Early T-cell Precursor Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia"

Elena leaned down and pretended to peer into the little girl's open mouth with a smile.

"You must tell me how you fit all of those big words into that tiny little space?" Elena smiled through tears of her own when Milla giggled.

Jack started to continue, "Milla's form of leukemia…,"

Elena held up a hand. "I understand Jack. It's the most viscous, the most aggressive."

There was surprise in the werewolf's face for Elena's knowledge. She just smiled.

"I read a lot." Damon snorted a laugh at the understatement.

"Alright. So, there's a clinic in New Mexico that can help Milla. But if we can't get there, she can't get treatment." Jack looked haggard as he looked at Elena. "Will you help us?"

"Jack, let me make a couple of calls. I'll need back up for this….for so many." She looked at the little girl and a plan started to formulate.

"Damon. If we're going to do what I'm thinking , we'll need about four rooms in the Boarding House and to be barricaded for twenty four hours. Can you handle that?"

He answered without hesitation "Anything for you, Elena." Then Damon seemed to read her mind.

"You wouldn't!" His blue eyes were wide. Elena could hear the excitement in Damon's voice.

Elena would be taking a risk, several in fact. But there would be a big payoff if it worked.

"You know I would, old friend."

Jack didn't understand, but he had hope for the first time in months.

"One last question, Jack. Will the council be annoyed when you break free of this enchantment? They had to know what they were doing when they had that spell planted….the long term effects."

"Yes, I think they will be." He knew they would be. It would be crossing the line from their perspective and unforgivable, but he couldn't bring himself to be completely honest with the female vampire. Too much rode on her agreement to help them.

Elena's answering crooked smile was tinged with malice. Helping a little girl and pissing off the Council_. What more could she ask for?_

"I'm going to step out and make two phone calls. If they go the way I'm hoping, we'll all be helping you very soon. All of you."

Milla smiled at her and sealed Elena's allegiance with only that.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 7

Jack watched the entrance to the Salvatore land nearly erupt in activity twenty minutes after Elena made her phone calls. A blonde male emerged from the house on foot meeting and then hugging Elena as two cars arrived, almost simultaneously. He assumed the blonde was the other Salvatore, Stefan. Of the two cars, one was a German sedan driven by a man dressed in an expensive suit. He looked like a bank president. When he got out of the car, Jack watched Elena make a b line for the rich guy. She and Mr. Banker talked animatedly for several minutes, but he couldn't catch their words with everything else going on.

He couldn't help but wonder at the story there. They made a sharp contrast. Elena dressed in rider's clothes and the rich guy in his silk suit and Italian loafers. Before she stepped away, the banker guy pulled her into a heated kiss, like one that two long acquainted lovers would share. The rich guy and the vicious biker chic vampire. _The plot thickens_, he thought with a crooked grin.

Jack had just learned that the woman who'd shredded his guards a few months ago had a husband….

He pictured her husband as a tall, evil looking long haired biker vamp who ate werewolf hearts for breakfast. The idea of that guy getting a glimpse of the clench he'd just witnessed made him shudder a little to himself. Violent "little Elena" liked to live dangerously, he guessed.

Jack sure as hell wouldn't be telling anybody. _Who was he to judge anyway, right? He wasn't here to take moral high ground. He was here for one reason alone….Milla._

Milla sat at the open door, also watching the activity and his heart ached at how she had declined over the last few months. She should be playing with kittens, not memorizing long names for child cancer and watching her father beg dangerous strangers for help. He was placing the entire pack in danger with this last ditch effort to break free. They had all agreed with him that it was necessary, but he would do it only if the risk was entirely his. They all stayed in their RVs while the vampires were here, and would until they pulled out of Virginia, if possible.

The other car that had pulled in was a small VW bug and a lovely dark skinned woman drove it. She had long, flowing hair and power snapped all around her. He could smell it on the wind. A witch. She left her car smiling and went to the male vampire he now knew to be Damon Salvatore, laughing and hugging him. She stopped a few seconds later to embrace Elena as well. Strange. In his experience, witches didn't get along with anybody. There was more animated talking he couldn't follow.

It appeared that this Elena snapped her fingers and vampires, bankers and witches came running. A leader he supposed. He could respect that. What he didn't understand was why she would make such effort for them. That, he was wary of.

Jack stood as Elena approached him. He could afford to pay her some respect if it would save his daughter's life.

Elena sat with Jack. Too often she had been the one left in the dark while others planned. She wanted to offer full disclosure for Jack and his little girl. He deserved that much for having the courage to come here.

She sat on the ground beside him. He offered her his chair, but she shrugged it away as she began.

"I want for us to go over some things before everything starts happening. There will be no surprises for you if I can help it. Everything that we do would require your permission."

After watching them work, unloading things from the witch's car, gathering others, he had some inkling of the effort involved here.

"Before you tell me, help me to understand why you would help us, Elena. I can see the group you command, but why bother, exactly? When we are part of the wolves that killed your father?"

"Well, you don't dance around things, do you? Just like Stefan. Alright, here it is. She," Elena gestured at Milla behind the screen of the RV. "is why I will help you. Pissing off the Council is a bonus. But if there was no council, I would still help."

Elena looked around the area, at the new activity and tried to see it as Jack might see it.

"Honestly, I don't command anything. These are my friends and family. We're a mixed bag, I have to say, but we mean well and try to leave things better than we found them. They are here because they want to be."

"As for Ric, he never wanted to be what he was. He was too good for it. He says I make him proud. He visits my brother regularly – don't ask- and sent me that message. That's important to me, but he's here too…in spirit, and he approves, I think."

She gave Jack a minute to absorb that.

"You are a very strange creature, Elena."

"You have no idea, Jack." They grinned at each other.

"Alright, the plan is twofold. We are setting up in the back yard to take down the spell. I know it can be done, because I've done it once before, but it killed the last person in the process. I have Bonnie here to help me while we take it down for your pack all at once, rather than individually. We won't let anything happen and are prepared to find another way if this won't work but will not be hurting anyone tonight."

"Could you try it on one of us? If it works, then do it for the group? Would that be safer?"

"That first person would be at the greatest risk, Jack."

"You will do it on me first, then."

But Elena shook her head. "Milla is going to need you."

"_Milla needs to be free_." He said it with determination. His mind was made up. "If giving my life turns out to be the only way, then take it."

Elena's skin prickled. He sounded just like Ric and the pressure behind her eyes burned. The amber colored warrior eyes were back, hard and uncompromising. _Elena learned to like one who had been an enemy in that moment._

"The other part of the plan involves Milla directly." Jack turned wary eyes on Elena at that and she rushed on.

"I'm going to let you in on a secret we keep tightly bound. Vampire blood can heal humans." This was the bit of information that Damon had seen so clearly in Elena's plans before. Jack's eyes went wide as he turned and looked at his little girl.

"How long have they given her?" The question was a tight whisper.

"Six months. And that's with the treatments that I can't get for her. Without them, it's bad." His throat closed for a second before he swallowed hard and went on. "Two months, maybe."

The small, tight thrum of the girl's heart filled Elena's ears across the ten feet that separated them from the door of the RV. It was fast and shallow, but she gazed into amber eyes and lied reassuringly.

"Her heart is determined and strong." Elena smiled at Jack when he looked surprised. "I hear it from here."

"Since Milla has a cancer of the bone marrow and blood, I think there is the possibility that I can do more than free her. But there are risks involved you need to know."

"Risks?" Jack didn't like the sound of that at all.

"Right. I could give her some of my blood. It would linger for twenty four hours. During that time it will be working to heal her. If she were to die while that blood is still present…" Elena hesitated. "Jack, I'm sitting here as a result of just such a set of circumstances."

Jack looked confused and faintly horrified.

"My husband was a vampire." She gestured toward Mr. Banker, who was removing bags from the trunk of the sedan. "I was human. I was accidentally exposed to his blood. There was a car wreck." She shrugged and gestured to herself. "I became what I am now."

"_Your husband_?" When she nodded, Jack thought- _I'll be damned. The Bank President is her devil._

Jack couldn't help but examine the guy he'd written off as human a little more closely. He didn't look like someone who could or even would tear through an honor guard. He didn't even look like someone who liked to get his hands dirty, but there was something about his eyes that spoke of volumes of experience. He knew that vampires were virtually immortal and like weres they got stronger with age, so the guy had to be a lot older than he looked, which was about Jack's age, of thirty-five. _Wow. Just wow._

He tried to absorb everything she was saying. "So you want to give her some of your blood and see if it heals her. Barricading the Salvatore home to keep her safe?" He swallowed hard.

Elena smiled grimly and nodded again. "Only with your permission. And since these two things will be going on at once, you would have to trust us to keep Milla safe inside while we are working a spell in the back yard."

Jack appeared to be considering, chewing his lower lip and turning narrowed eyes on his little girl. Elena rushed on.

"I have personally been saved by vamp blood many times. So I know it works. ETP-ALL may be a little different. It's an illness at the DNA level though, so I don't know for certain how deeply the blood will reach, but if it does heal her, it might change her DNA, too. The long term effects could mean that, if she ever activates the curse, she might be one helluva werewolf. I don't know. Elijah and I are speculating there. And if the blood won't repair DNA, it will help her get _better_ at the very least. So I see it as a win-win, but this is your decision."

"You're really willing to bleed for my little girl."

"In a second."

"Werewolf tradition would make you one of ours, if you did that. Sharing blood would make you family. You prepared for that?" Jack leaned forward to study her more closely. He'd never even considered the possibilities she was introducing. But the gain would be deeper for all of them.

"I'm not going to be called into battle, am I?" Elena had to laugh. She knew that wolf families fought together, hunted together. Considering that werewolves and vamps were naturally enemies, that could get…um..._awkward_.

"Not at all, but it would make you and Milla family."

Elena had lost so much that just the thought made her eyes burn. She could always use more family. Smiling, she asked, "Like a god-daughter?"

"Yes, exactly like that."

"One last question. Who will be guarding my little girl while I can't?" Jack's concern was understandable.

"Elijah. Nothing and no one will get past him. I can guarantee that."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the drawing room at the boarding house, Elena brought a large heavy cup to Milla. She sat beside the girl. "Milla, have you ever had to drink yucky stuff so that the hospital can see inside your tummy?"

Milla made a face and said she had. "Well this will be yucky too, but not quite that much. I have mixed it with honey, so it's thick and sweet, but it's yucky too. And if it gets cold, it is truly nasty. Do you think you can drink all of this before it gets cold for us, honey? It will make you feel all better."

Milla promised she would drink it all.

And just like that, the first step was done. Twenty four hours would tell the tale for little Milla.

Elena kissed Elijah on the cheek and was gone.

XXXXXXXXXX

Bonnie had decided on a using a small clearing some 50 yards away from the house. It was surrounded by trees, isolated and just the right size.

No one had seen Bonnie at work from their group for a very long time, and had no idea what they were in for. Elena and Bonnie had agreed to take down the spell together. Elena had a natural gift for the work, according to Elijah. Bonnie could get her close and help her identify where to work without hurting anyone. That was the part she had been missing before. With the werewolf boy the night of the attack she had just pulled everything up by the roots, leaving nothing when he finished his compulsion to answer her questions. He had collapsed and died when she was done.

This time she would have to take greater care. Milla would need her father.

And so, everyone assembled to watch when the moon was at its highest in the night sky. Jeremy called "now" and Bonnie began. As before there had been many words and incantations early on, now it seemed that Bonnie had grown exponentially in power.

In the quiet, Bonnie closed her eyes, tipped her face to the half moon and said only "Terra."

Five pillars of stone rose from the grass, shifting, adjusting to do as she commanded. Four of them made four corners and a single one lifted half as tall in the middle as the others.

When all movement stopped, with Bonnie beyond hearing the gasps of the others, she tipped her head again and said "Aquas" and rain began to pour from a cloudless sky, covering the entire clearing and everyone in it.

Elena tipped her own face to the rain and licked her lips with joy. She wished Elijah could see this, but she would show him later.

The rain stopped when everything had a thorough soaking. Then Bonnie said "Aeris" and gale force winds filled the small glade. It seemed to move like a small dust devil from one end of the circle she had made to the other before settling in and dispersing to the stones, to hover there above each corner.

Finally, Bonnie said only "Ignis" and a fire erupted from her small hands and swept across the grass to light the stones as well. The fire and the air hovered over each stone, moving, blending, mixing in a swirl.

Elena crossed her wrists across the stone and Jack did the same. They anchored together there across the smallest middle pillar of rock. She smiled and winked at him. Jack smiled back grimly. Bonnie lifted her face again to the moon and said "Vitae" the elements within the circle seemed to go wild around the two of them.

Bonnie said then with a shout "Ab aeterno, ab hinc, absit invidia!"

The power very nearly threw Elena from the circle. She could feel the additional life force within Jack struggle. It was the enchantment, seeing its own end, working to regroup and push. Elena closed her eyes and saw the wall she always saw when she entered any mind. Elijah's looked like a red brick wall, the exterior of a home. Damon's was unaccountably tall and dark. Jack's appeared to be busting at the seams, buckled and bowed under great pressure.

With the boy, she was new and had just pushed through the wall. After Elijah's training, she made a door and opened it. Jack's mind, his consciousness was layered in the same thick, roping briars she recognized from the boy. Thinking to Bonnie, knowing she would hear, she described the sight and Bonnie's answer came on the wind. "Ab Immo." Deeper. So rather than working at the base pulling upwards by the roots as she had with the boy, Elena began to work through the briars, allowing them to rip and tear her as they would.

She didn't care. She wove and worked through layer after layer of great, roping briars finding some of them as thick and large around as her arm or her thigh. She did not tear, but stretch and push at them, ever deeper. It felt like she was here for hours, ever pushing against the briars and then she found the center of it all. Jack was there, finally, wrapped in the briars, imprisoned there and looking terrified. She freed him enough that he could hear her and speak. She leaned forward and whispered the words to Jack. It had to come from him, or it would kill him. She told him so. _Just say it Jack for your people, for Milla._

Jack let the words rip from his chest in a great roar, his eyes yellow. "Vepres morior, alea iacta est." And the briars disappeared to dust. The die was cast.

She was pulled now, backwards, through the portal of Jack's consciousness as a great wind blew through her, sweeping her and the remaining dust forever away. Elena saw as she went that this would free his entire pack. The power, the spell had been rooted in Jack, as their leader. If he had been lost, it would've reverted to his second and so on, until the end of time. By removing the briars here, all of them were free.

What she did not see was that when the spell began, her and Jack, anchored at their hands had been lifted from the ground by the combined elemental power of the air, fire, water, air and finally spirit represented by Jack. They moved together at blinding speeds and the entire group was mesmerized watching the two of them levitate and spin in the middle of the circle of light and air and water. Bonnie, who was also lost in the power along with Jack and Elena saw only what Elena saw. When Elena watched the briars blow away to dust and was pulled away, the elements dispersed at once causing an explosion that sent her, as the intruder in the circle, out of the glade and across the sky in an explosion of fire and power that shook the ground beneath all of them. Her body flew up and over, crashing through trees and knocking over dozens of them. The area where her body lay looked like a small bomb had gone off.

It was Stefan that found her first. The fire had burnt away part of her clothes, charring some of it, but her skin had already healed. The trees were demolished around her and he lifted her into his arms, running back toward the house. She had been thrown nearly two miles. Damon met him part of the way, inspecting her. She was still unconscious, but there were no injuries.

Elena woke to jarring and the smell of Stefan. For a moment she was seventeen again and he was her hero. Leaning in close she wrapped arms around his neck and laid her head there. But his scent filled her senses of blood and she was hungry, starving. Before she understood where, or why or what was happening, she had opened her mouth, fangs extended and was hovering close to his skin. At the last possible moment she remembered some remnant of who she was and leapt from his arms with a roar of horror and pain, landing gracelessly against the shattered roots of a toppled and ancient tree.

She looked at her hands and they were greying before her eyes. She was dying, starving. How was this possible? Stefan and Damon were coming in close, attempting to help her. She roared in horror, mindless, fearful. All she could think was that she would hurt one of them. She was backing away, against the tree, pushing up and away, too weak to stand.

"She's starving." Stefan could see the grey under her skin. They couldn't call Elijah to come to her because he was with Milla, the girl, protecting her at Elena's request.

"The blast threw her for miles. That's bound to wear on a body." It was Damon and he could see what needed to happen. "Stefan, go tell them that we've found her. I'll bring her back when she's able to travel. It'll be a few minutes, but she'll be fine."

"But Damon…." Concern for his brother made Stefan hesitate.

"I got this man."

Damon drew closer to her and she snarled low. And spoke through clenched teeth. "Please go."

"It's okay, Elena. You saved everybody tonight. Jack and Milla will be free. You did it." He was talking, distracting her as he drew in a little closer with each word. "Let me be the one to save you now, honey. Just this one last time."

Tears streamed down her face. "I'll hurt you. Please, just go back." She sobbed, shaking as the thirst tore through her, her entire body ached and burned.

"You would never hurt me, or anyone else for that matter." Lovingly he pulled her up and into his arms. "Please let me do this, Elena."

He was close and the scent was more than she could stand. For good measure, he drew a line across his own jugular with a fingernail, and a single line of blood appeared. When the scent hit the air, she moved, pushing him to the ground.

She sank her teeth into Damon's skin without another thought for him or anything but to make the burning stop. And he let her, wrapping his arms around her effectively locking her in place as she fed and sobbed and moaned.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

When Elena became aware again, she was holding Damon down with all of her strength gorging on him. He had started to grow weak, but made no attempts to stop her. Her clothing had been burned in the fire that sent her body flying. So she was nearly naked, wrapped around Damon with her skin buzzing and her body tight with a need for so much more than blood. Damon's hands moved slowly over her back, like a weakening caress, even as his skin grew even paler than it usually was.

She and Damon were on the forest floor, her belly was full and if the burning tension inside her was any indication, they were just about to have sex. Her body buzzed with desire for him, even as she was now completely aware again. Her stomach cramped with an agonizing need mingled with paralyzing shame.

The guilty need she had felt for Damon in the early years of their friendship was nothing…._nothing_…compared to this.

His blue eyes glittered as they moved over her face. They had fluttered open when she went still in his arms. There were trails of blood smear all around Damon's face and neck. _She had done that_. She threw herself up and away from him, afraid of what she'd done and ashamed of what she wanted to do.

Horror and tears blinded her as she clung to a branch high in the nearest tree. _Her friend. Damon was her friend. Not her lover. Elijah was her heart. Oh god, Elijah. _Against her will, her skin still burned from the contact she had just broken.

Damon didn't even see her move. One second she was there, the next she was gone.

His eyes scanned the dark forest around him and then he heard her, from ten feet up. Her voice broke the silence of the tattered forest around them.

"Are you alright?" She was asking _him_ that. She had been thrown miles in an explosion that had ended up flattening God knew how many acres of Salvatore land only an hour ago. Her first question, when she could think clearly again was about whether someone else was okay. _Same old Elena_.

"Well, I've had better days, but yeah, I'm fine." He tried to stand then, and swayed a bit. Then she was by his side, supporting his weight.

"I took too much." Her voice seemed to choke on the words.

"I hurt you. I'm sorry." She dropped to the ground again a few feet from him, her face was a mask of agony. She offered him her wrist and he shrugged it away.

"Please. I'm fine." He grinned a bit and rolled his eyes, but it all fell flat as he worked toward standing and failed on the first try.

He would've fallen flat too, if she hadn't been there to catch him.

In a strange twist of fate, _she_ carried _him_ back to the boarding house. He was the one that pointed out the irony of that to her as they moved through the broken trees and shattered landscape.

XXXXXXXXXX

They got Damon some blood and he was going to be fine. Or at least she kept telling herself that. He was still wise cracking when they walked through the door together, his way of reassuring her. He even insisted on walking the last portion of the distance, and _did _manage to pull it off with pride pushing him forward, it seemed.

He'd said, "You will _not_ be carrying me over the threshold of my own home with God and everybody watching. Sorry, Super Girl. That ain't gonna happen."

But everyone in the room saw the markings on him and knew what she had done. Her stomach clenched at the thought.

She caught a glimpse of Milla on the way up the stairs. The little girl was lying on the floor at her father's feet. Her color looked better already. She looked at her watch. Twenty one more hours to go. Maybe little Milla would be OK too, now.

She excused herself, saying that she would clean up. Avoiding Elijah's eyes proved a real challenge as she left the room.

Peeling off the jacket she had borrowed from Damon to cover her lack of clothes, she took a good long look at what was left. The tank shirt was basically gone, tattered. Thank God for a nice bra, she supposed…but still. Her pants were a lost cause. Heart breaking. These were her favorites, too.

When she emerged from the shower, she found clean jeans and a pink t-shirt laid out on the bed. Elijah sat beside them on the bed, waiting for her.

"Milla?" She asked, refusing to look up as she pulled on her clothes.

"Milla's doing better. She's turned in with her father for the night. I think that little girl is going to be fine now. She's already much stronger and the grey is fading very quickly. I think she'll look like a different child by morning." Elena sagged with relief and Elijah went on.

"My concern is _for you_. I felt that explosion rock the entire house. Are you alright?" He came close and wrapped strong arms around her, running a hand down her back as if to reassure himself she was still in one piece.

She nodded, her head lowered, her nose pressed just below his shoulder. "Yeah, it was pretty intense."

"Bonnie said before she left that Jack and his people should be free to go where they want now."

Thank goodness for Bonnie and her tendency to wrap things up into tight little packages. Elena had not looked forward to trying to explain to anyone what she had seen and what they had been done – accomplished.

"She also told me that it was pretty bad in there." Elijah raised her head so she would have to meet his eyes. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She pulled away, avoiding his scrutiny. He knew her too well, would see too much. She knew he would want to see what she had seen, and she couldn't show him just a little of it. She would end up showing him everything. Her eyes stung at the thought. That couldn't happen.

"Not really, Elijah. I would just like to sleep for now." And so they settled on the bed together with Elijah wrapping his arms around her as she slept.

XXXXXXXXXX

She woke alone and felt grateful. Facing Elijah was more than she had the strength for at the moment. It was when that thought occurred to her that she knew what she had to do, even as she felt like her heart was breaking.

Elena heard Milla move from her bed next to her Dad and pad around her room a bit. The little girl appeared on the stairs wrapped in a soft white robe that covered her nightgown.

Elena was leaning on the stair rail and smiled up at the girl. Glowing green eyes looked back at her. They had been pretty before, but were beautiful now. Smooth pink cheeks dimpled as the girl returned the smile.

"Miss 'lena, does you have cereal? I'm hungry." A small hand rubbed her belly expressively over the pink flowered nightgown she still wore.

"I don't know sweetheart. Why don't we go look together?" She held out her hand and Milla took it with a smile.

She didn't know who to thank for Milla being alright. Instead she thanked every god that she could think of. Her hair was glowing and a soft brownish color with natural blonde highlights. Milla had become frankly the most beautiful little girl Elena had ever seen. She might be prejudiced though, being a new god mother and all.

Jack came down a few minutes later and found Milla demolishing a bowl of cereal at the kitchen bar. It made his heart sing. For months, no matter what he offered her, he'd barely been able to get her to eat. He didn't know what he had done to deserve his little one being healthy, or this friend that had been willing to do so much for someone who barely knew them, but he was gratitude and joy made his heart pound.

He poured himself a cup of the coffee and went to settle in beside Milla at the counter. Elena met his eyes and grinned, looking down at Milla expressively, her joy seeming to mirror his.

"Good morning, Mills" Milla looked up into her daddy's face and her little brows scrunched up with worry.

"What's wrong Daddy?" Jack didn't realize that there were tears there were rolling down his cheeks until that moment.

"Not a single thing, sweetheart. I'm just happy."

Elena settled into onto the stool beside him at the bar and glanced at the clock. They had four hours left.

"Jack, I need to talk to you for a minute." She met his eyes, then pointed at one ear and put a finger to her lips. _She didn't want to be overheard._ _Got it. _He nodded.

She pointed at a pad of paper in front of him. Pen in hand, she wrote, _I need wheels, a bike. Fast. Does someone in your pack have one for sale?_

He took the pen from her hand and responded, _Everything I have is yours. Please take mine._

She shook her head emphatically as she wrote. _Just need to borrow until I can get somewhere and buy my own. _

He nodded. Then she wrote _You don't owe me or anyone else anything. Milla being safe and healthy is enough for all of us. Don't carry some debt with you, K?_

He still didn't understand, so he asked the questions he'd been afraid before to put voice to. _Why did you help us? I didn't really expect, when we came here that you would…. _He couldn't even finish the thought, even on paper.

She appeared to consider that for a moment, she looked fondly at Milla's head, soft gold highlights playing in the caustic lights of the kitchen.

_One smile from her and I lost my heart. It was love at first sight, Jack._

He nodded. _That_ he could understand and believe. It also brought him some reassurance to know that this powerful creature loved his daughter that way. Milla would be safe. _An entire wolf pack and a vicious female vampire all a phone call away…._

Before anyone else was awake and stirring, Jack took Elena outside and introduced her to his bike.

"You ride, right?"

"Yes. My dad taught me when I was twelve."

"This isn't a dirt bike, Elena."

"I'm not some silly human female biting off more than she can chew, Jack." She grinned.

_Yeah, ok, point made._

Jack unloaded the bike and pulled off the cover without flourish, but Elena gasped anyway.

"Oh, my. It's a Harley Softail Custom. Black matte paint. It's beautiful, Jack. Are you sure you want to do this? Even for a few days…."

He shrugged. It was paid for and didn't even rank on his list of priorities.

"No big deal. Take it for as long as you need. When you're ready, let me know and we'll arrange delivery back to New Mexico. I'm not using it right now. I have responsibilities." He meant Milla.

The bike had leather side bags. Elena had plans for them.

XXXXXXXXXX

At the one hour countdown mark, Elena began to paw through the bag that Elijah had brought. There was an extra change of clothes in there and she needed them. She didn't know where he was, even now. Everyone had been up for several hours. Only Jack knew of her plans, and he wouldn't be saying anything.

Headed for the door of her room, thinking to get these things in the side bags, Elijah stepped in suddenly. He leaned against the door, watching her and she flushed guiltily.

"What's going on, Elena?"

"When the pack rolls out, I'm going to follow them to the state border, to make sure they are able to cross it without problems."

Crossing his arms, he shook his head. "Why would you need a change of clothes for that?"

She looked at her feet for a moment before she forced the words past the knot in her throat.

"I'm leaving, Elijah."

From the corner of her eye, because she didn't have the courage to look directly at him, she saw him blanche.

"It's just for a little while. I'm working out… something. I have to do this alone."

Elijah had been here before, watching someone he loved walk away. The eyes she turned on him, the ones that wouldn't meet his, seemed cold.

"I need a day, a week, a month…I don't know. Just to get my head straight."

"And you can't do that with me?" His voice was strangled.

"I'm so sorry." She didn't touch him. Shame wouldn't allow it.

"I love you, Elijah. That won't change in a few days." All she could really think about was being gone. Being near him reminded her too starkly of her betrayal.

He didn't respond. What could he say, after all? He had hoped….so much. He had expected this, after all. Guilt and pain, as he faced the inevitable, threatened to squeeze the life out of him.

"Then go, Elena. Know that I love you and everything I have done has been for you." His words rang with sincerity, but it was a false at best, an outright lie at worst. He had pressured her to stay with him for his sake alone. Now he was paying the price for his selfishness. He could hardly hold her to any promises she had made when he had lied to and deceived her so much himself in the last year.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Elena had been on the road for a little less than a week. Being alone was new for her and she found that she actually did enjoy it to some extent. Even still, she would catch herself noticing something, a flower at a rest stop in a shade of pink she had never seen, or a child in a purple tutu and tennis shoes that made her want to laugh and looking for Elijah to share the laughter with. Of course, he wasn't there. She had left him standing in the driveway at the Salvatore Boarding home. None of their friends had realized that she would not be doubling back and headed to Richmond after the wolf pack reached the Virginia border and crossed it without problems.

Elena missed her husband. It was crippling to not have his face to wake up to every morning. She wept for him, for their trust and the closeness she had always felt with him. But she didn't deserve any of it now. And she couldn't face him after wanting Damon as she had. She didn't have the courage left for that.

So she wandered from town to town, wandering in and out of biker bars, hunting when she had to. This was a newly acquired skill. She was finding that it was easy, if you didn't take too much and didn't kill. She had spent the last year eating from the refrigerator, having never needed to hunt before. She didn't believe that Elijah was limiting her purposely, but the lack of experience had been difficult at first. She had managed not to hurt anyone enough to kill or even hospitalize. Discovering that she had remarkable control, all things considered was an adventure as well. She usually compelled the person she had been drinking from to think that mosquitos were remarkably large this year, or that they had cut themselves shaving or some other bit of nonsense until the marks she left healed.

The blood was much better this way, too, but she could live without that.

One interesting thing was that the people she drank from actually enjoyed it. This was a real surprise. Her shock was because she herself had been the occasional vampire juice box and never exactly enjoyed it. But then again, she had never been skillfully approached. The person attacking her had always meant to hurt. The men she fed from were more than pleased to be where they were when she was done with them. She could usually smell the arousal, a kick of endorphins and adrenaline to the blood stream, sometimes even before she bit down. Then it would increase twenty fold when her teeth sank in. No one had ever told her that her victims would smile and say thank you when she was done. And that was minus any compulsion. She never used compulsion for hunting, it seemed unfair. She only used it to explain any injury or lightheadedness.

It was while she was doing this hunting that she was interrupted by her husband. She caught his scent before he came in the door of the bar. She was in a far corner, in the near dark, with a man named Stan. Stan had been working toward a kiss. She hadn't eaten in a day, so she was keeping it light and easy. Hurting was not her intention, just to take enough to keep her strong.

From behind her, she felt him approach. Her heart ached. Stan opened his eyes and saw him standing there.

"What do you want?" asked Stan with a growl. He didn't want for them to be interrupted. _How sweet._

Elijah answered grimly, his lips twisted. "My wife."

Elena compelled Stan to forget he had ever seen her or Elijah and that he should be more careful while shaving.

She turned back to Elijah then and her heart broke at the sight of him. He was unchanged, a ten thousand dollar suit, Italian shoes, but the dignity he usually carried was absent. He looked worn and tired and fed up.

"Elijah."

"Elena, I have been patient. I gave you five days. That's the best I can do. If you have not worked out whatever is troubling you in this time, then you aren't going to." He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes hard and determined.

"I am not leaving here without you. Even if I have to throw you over my shoulder and drag you out." He spoke very quickly and succinctly when he was upset.

She knew he meant what he said. He didn't make idle threats. And most of all, she just didn't want to fight with him. She was overjoyed to see him, in fact, but was unable to show him. The wall between them seemed too high.

"We can go.", was all she said as she headed for the door. Grimly, he watched her gather her purse, producing a bill to pay her bar tab, and they were gone.

Fortunately this particular bar was in walking distance of the hotel she had chosen. It wasn't fancy, but it was clean and served her purposes. She opened the door to her room and motioned for him to come inside. He had remained silent for the walk over, shadowing her steps.

"Why are you here, Elijah?"

"I know that what you want is to see the last of me. Unfortunately what you want is the last thing I have the strength to give you." His mouth twisted as he spoke, his eyes hooded.

It wasn't true and she tried to gather the courage to deny it, but couldn't. After a moment, he went on.

"Damon mentioned what happened in the woods." That conversation and the implications had given Elijah the strength to wade out of an alcohol induced haze and come looking for her.

Elena grimaced at this new bit of information_. Stupid Damon. Never could keep his mouth shut._

"I don't want to talk about this."

He jerked her into his arms, patience gone. "I don't give a damn what you want. I need for you to talk to me." His face dark with frustration, he took her small shoulders and shook her until she thought her head would rattle.

She flung his hands off her and walked over to the other side of the room, looking for distance. She couldn't think when he was so close.

"When Damon told you what happened, did he mention that I nearly had sex with him on a mound of dirt and old trees?" Unexpected tears rolled down her cheeks as her voice thickened. Putting her shame to words would break her.

"Did he tell you that I wanted him? Because I did."

Elijah opened his mouth, but she put up a hand to stop him.

"Wait, just listen." She drew a deep, shaky breath. "You're going to say that this is just the way of vampires. That what happened there was normal. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that he did what he did. It's my response that disgusts me. If blood and sex are so closely associated for vampires, I'm not sure I can do this. I felt things with him that I should only ever feel with you. I would have been unfaithful if I hadn't stopped myself at the last minute. I made you promises about fidelity that were suddenly hard to keep, Elijah."

She was in his arms in a second, wrapped closely as she wept on expensive suit.

"Sweetling, is this really what has been troubling you? Why you wanted away so quickly?" All she could do was tremble and nod. He had moved her so he could see her face. With her nod, he kissed her, and wrapped his arms around her back, lifting her to meet his kiss.

"I have protected you when I shouldn't have. I didn't purposely leave things, out. I thought we would get around to them together. I should know better than to make plans where you're concerned." His voice was hushed and tense as he spoke into her hair.

"You are right about blood and sex being closely related for vampires.  
But what you don't know is that as part of the blood exchange, feelings are echoed and amplified. You feel an echo, sometimes a very loud echo, of what the vampire you are in the exchange with is feeling. Those weren't your longings, sweetness. They were your friends'." She grew still against him as he spoke.

"So you felt something with Damon that upset you. Let me show you what it can be so that you can compare. Is that fair?' She nodded again, still uncertain.

He turned his head then and led her to his throat. "Bite down, little one." He felt her tense. "No, don't do that. You can't hurt me, my heart. There is no danger. Please." She picked up his unique scent, something she had been missing for five days, and the blood just under the surface, and her own need for him, only him. Elena swiftly sank her teeth in, having learned from five days of hunting that the slower she went, the more it hurt.

He filled her mouth; a warm, lovely taste of sweet richness. Sealing her lips over the wound, she pulled, and felt him respond. In the blood, in the intimacy of this moment, she felt his heart close to her own, thrumming out a simple message of tenderness, need and blinding love….all for her. Her body responded and before she could even pull away, she was already reaching a climax she hadn't seen coming and couldn't explain. Elijah hadn't touched her, except to hold her head to his throat with one hand and gently stroke her back with the other.

Elena moved her mouth away and turned her own neck so that it was subject to him. She pulled his head down to her, pressing him to her. She said only "Please." If she was going to experience this, she wanted all of it.

When he bit down, her body came apart at the seams. She was up, legs around his waist, clawing at his back, gasping his name. The sensation wasn't just for the person doing the biting, evidently. Her blood ran hot as the desire she felt for him tore through her like a sudden storm on a clear day. His answering response was him pushing her hard against the wall as he moved against her. They shifted roughly around the room, first against the wall behind her, then the door, the dresser, in search of any possible surface that would make getting closer possible in this torrent of need.

Just as when she had bitten Elijah, he now absorbed the message her heart held, his eyes wide and blind as he drank. Love, unworthiness, pain and the torment of having betrayed him all blended together to meet him in the thrumming silence of the pulse of her blood. Relief and joy sang a chorus in his head as he felt her heart crying out his name.

She wasn't ready to permanently see the back of him, as he had thought. Not yet. Thank god.

He felt like an imprisoned man given a reprieve, allowed to walk in the sun again unexpectedly.

The end result was a hotel room with buckled drywall, a bed with two broken legs, torn sheets and a broken television screen.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Elijah was making preparations for them to leave the hotel room he'd found her staying at in Colorado. He had made arrangements with management about repairs that would be necessary to the room they had given Elena. He was forced to sign some sort of agreement, which was fine. He honestly couldn't care less. He had her again. A few thousand dollars for repairs was nothing to him.

He left his card and the name of his secretary so that arrangements and payment for damages could be made. He was sure that there would be an attempt to take him to the cleaners over the whole thing, but to be honest, that was why he had lawyers. They could handle it.

When he had walked into that bar to find her in a dark corner with a man, he had wanted to take the place apart with his bare hands. He would have too, if he hadn't realized she was hunting in time.

Being territorial and a vampire, he had also wanted to kill Damon when her friend had explained to him what had happened in the woods. Details had been skimmed over, but he got the idea. He came here expecting her to tell him that she wanted their marriage to be was over and not to ever have to see him again.

His trip here had been tinged with the fowl taste of inevitability.

Instead he now saw and understood what she felt, what she had hid from him before the blood exchange last night. To find that she had missed him, felt ravaged by the pain of her perceived betrayal, felt joy at seeing him, loved him, these things answered all of his pain in one fell swoop.

He had had valid reasons for postponing introducing Elena to the blood exchange. The main one being that he would see and understand more than he would be understood. He had felt it was an intrusion on her privacy. It frustrated him that it seemed at every turn, when he tried to protect her, it backfired. If they had shared a blood exchange connection before her emergency in the woods outside the Salvatore home, then what happened with her friend would have been expected and disregarded. The feelings would have been something she knew how to handle. He had almost lost her and he blamed himself.

Now he would embrace the advantages blood exchange offered as often as she wanted it. He saw that they needed this, this connection and trust that was the end result of such an exchange. Funny how even he could learn something new, even after so long. He had expected she would want to continue her life as if the accident had never happened, as if she was still human, but she wasn't. And pretending that nothing had changed had been of no advantage to anyone.

He stepped out into the sunshine and took a deep breath. His Elena still loved him. Everything else was irrelevant. And to think that she was concerned that she had been disloyal. He had never known another who was more loyal than she was.

And for this woman that he loved, he would give her whatever she wanted. If she wanted to continue riding across the country on motorcycles, continue the tour she had begun, he would go with her._ The rest of the world be damned._

Elena watched in amazement as the necessary gear, along with a bike was delivered in a few hours for Elijah. She would never understand how quickly he could get things done. He said only that you could get whatever you needed with enough money. He smiled at her expression when he set aside his suit and put on the leathers for travel.

At her wonder, he said, "What? Did you expect that I would ride in tailored suits?"

The beautiful man encased in butter soft black leather made her mouth water. She told him so. He decided then and there that he was long overdue for an occasional wardrobe change.

It was another two hours before they left, and one of those hours _was not_ spent packing or preparing.

XXXXXXXXXX

Elena and Elijah went whatever direction the wind blew. They went as far north as Montana, as far west as Washington State. Elena fell in love with the apple orchards in Washington and the rolling fields that glistened in the morning dew. They rode late into the night sometimes and then all day long other days just for the joy of riding together.

Her eyes were sharper, especially at night and she could find herself lost in the way the morning sun was captured in dew that gathered on a spider web. A sunrise could reduce her to tears. Yes, there was horror in being a vampire. Death, pain and blood were around every corner. Those things she knew too well. But she also was beginning to see the positive things as well, the beauty, the depth of emotion, the precarious balance between living and existing seemed to hold her captive for a while like the sun on those dew drops.

Elijah watched her explore and remembered his own first few years as a vampire. There had been no one to teach then, no one to show him the balance between the beauty and the horror of what he had become. He was so grateful to be this for her. They made love often, sometimes in an abandoned field in the tall grass and the rain, sometimes in a lovely hotel room where they tried not to do damage. There was a wildness and a peace about this time that they both treasured. They worked together to keep it just that way. Reality would inevitably intrude soon enough.

On interstate 80 somewhere between Utah and Nevada reality caught up. They had been on the road together for two weeks.

Elena had made a stop to study some plant life on the roadside when the wind from the desert overtook them, carrying a powerfully musky scent they both recognized as werewolf. She met Elijah's eyes for a second before she moved quickly to a high rock in an attempt to spot the source.

There were a dozen men, all on motorcycles moving at blinding speeds to intercept her and Elijah on the abandoned road ahead. There were a dozen more werewolves already transformed running in formation with the same intention. One group came from the north and one from the south. Elijah smiled grimly and said it was just as well that they hadn't caught up to them while they were moving. So they would stand.

After a moment's close inspection of the riders, she saw nothing that indicated large firepower of any kind, or even smaller weapons, really. There might be the personal handgun, but no crossbows, stakes, or anything that would be of concern to a vampire.

Elijah suggested that they were probably on a retrieval mission. His stomach clenched at the thought that if he had let her continue on alone as she had originally demanded, she would've faced this ambush alone_._

Elijah ran down, very quickly, the plan he had in mind when the two hunting parties arrived. And so, rather than a blind ambush, they were waiting on the two groups to converge on them.

Hand in hand is how they found the two motorcycle riders. The leader had been told that the female was a very strong vampire. The male was an unknown. It was their suspicion that he was a human she had acquired along the way, by compulsion no doubt. He had been told to bring the female in as peacefully as possible. She had committed some sort of crime against the council that didn't really matter to him; all he really wanted was a good fight. It had been quiet and he was restless; his men were antsy. He hoped the female would put up a fight to answer their itch before they took her.

The men stopped and dismounted their bikes. The wolves waited on the other side, snarling with their impatience, but they all together effectively surrounded Elena and Elijah.

One man came forward. He was a typical biker with long, dark brown hair, long black coat and carrying his helmet in one hand. He didn't expect this would take long, clearly. He addressed Elena "The Council wants to see you, Vamp-bitch. So you'll be coming with us."

_Elijah saw red_.

Before Elena could move or respond to the insult, Elijah seemed to become wind itself. She had never seen anyone or anything move so fast. He was just gone from her side and the man who spoke suddenly couldn't anymore because his head and shoulders were no longer attached. The spray of the blood, caught in the wind Elijah created as he moved from one man to the next created a red cloud in the sunrise around them that swirled like a dust devil, rising high.

The plan had been for Elena to take the men, he would take the wolves, but evidently he had changed his mind. So turning to the wolves, one sprang and Elena wrapped her arms around its neck and wrenched. She felt the neck break and went to move to the next one. But Elijah was already there moving so quickly she couldn't tell how the wolves were dying, only that bodies and more spray of blood was the result. The pink mist around them grew as the wolves and the men never stood a chance.

Even in his anger, Elijah had the presence of mind to leave one of them alive. It was the one he assumed to be the second in command. The man had short, spiky sandy blonde hair, clean shaven face and wearing a Walking Dead t-shirt. He had stood behind the speaker a moment before and looked a little shocked at the insult to Elena when it came. It was the shock Elijah had noticed that saved this man's life. The blonde stood, baffled and horrified while his friends hit the ground one after another. He never saw an attack.

When Elijah came to a stop, he took the head of the speaker and handed it to the blonde man left standing, tucking it under the man's arm like a helmet. It was a purposeful mockery of the way the dead leader had held his own helmet while he had insulted Elena.

Elijah said "I would like for you to give this to Jonah Walker. Tell him that I'm Elijah and that he's managed to piss me off, which really is quite a feat. He should be expecting for me to pay him a visit very soon."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The ride home was uneventful. They stayed on their guard, Elijah staying vigilant all the way. But they were never challenged again.

When they weren't riding, they were discussing how best to proceed. Elijah's knee jerk reaction was that he would confront the council leader alone and Elena should stay away. When she pointed out that this had been an ambush intended for her, and more importantly, they clearly knew enough about her movements that they could find her. Did he really want to leave her all alone to go and kill one when there might be dozens waiting for her? Pretending to be the helpless female could come in handy. Naturally, Elijah saw what she was doing, but did see some logic in the point. From there on, they began to plan together.

When they got home, the first thing Elena did was return one of a thousand voicemails from Damon. She hadn't taken her phone with her purposely. She found it in the luggage that Elijah had left in their bedroom while she was gone and it was about to blow up with messages.

Damon answered the phone on the second ring, "Elena?"

"I just got home."

"I'll be right there." His voice sounded deep and gruff as he disconnected the line.

Fifteen minutes later her doorbell pealed. Elijah was in the shower.

Elena stepped onto the front porch two steps and saw no one. Suddenly two strong hands grasped her from behind, one at her belt loop, one at her shoulders and she was launched across her front yard into an open stretch of grass. She turned, prepared to do battle, but landed hard enough on her back to dig a shallow trench in the yard.

_Uggh. Elijah loves this yard. He's gonna kill me._ Before she could get her bearings though, Damon had already launched himself at her and pinned her to the ground, straddling her chest, one hand against each of her shoulders.

"I thought we agreed you weren't going to do this silence shit to me again!" He roared. His eyes were red, veins on his face, fury in every line of his face and posture.

_Damon had worried for weeks. Seeing that she was fine, rather than bringing relief, made him angrier. If she was fine, then she just hadn't called, had let him continue to think the worst, with no consideration whatsoever._

But she was shaking her head. "You're right. Go ahead. Free shot. I deserve it. Commence with the beating already."

When he saw she wasn't going to fight back, he sat up, loosening his hold on her shoulders. The rage drained right out of him like helium from a child's balloon.

She sat up and wrapped her arms around his waist, baffling him again.

"I wasn't avoiding you, I swear." She pressed her face into his shirt. "You saved my life and I never even stopped to say so much as "Thank you." I suck as a friend, don't I?"

"Pretty much." He agreed. He sat down on the grass beside her. He was calming down after running on rage and worry for weeks.

"You've been gone for nearly a month, damn it. Elena, what the hell happened?"

"Elijah and I had a fight, I guess. I couldn't stay. I needed some time to breathe and told him so. It was bad for a while. But I didn't even take my phone with me, Damon. I should've called you. I'm sorry that you were worried." She rose to her knees beside him, hugging his shoulders.

"I saw him a couple of days after you left. He was _not_ a pretty sight." Elijah had been a damned mess actually. Well, for Elijah the fact that his suit was wrinkled equaled a mess, but still. It had been alarming.

"And then he was gone too, and I had no clue what the hell was going on. He was about as open to conversation with me as ever, and I just didn't know what to think." Damon shrugged.

"What goes on between you is none of my business, I know that. But when you disappeared, I thought things had gone really bad."

She smiled at him, kissing his cheek.

"Damon, you're the best friend I have. You had a right to know where I was. I just didn't think. I was upset and my brain shut down." There was no reason why Damon should ever have to know the full reason for what had happened with Elijah. Damon had been prepared to do whatever was needed to save her life and if he knew it had created the backlash that it had, it would just cause him pain.

"You really actually _fight_ with him? Are you nuts?" His look said she must be suicidal, but she only smiled. He had seen what the guy could do and frankly he had to respect that kind of power. Evidently Elena got a free pass with that. Amazing.

"Is there anyone I won't fight with?"

"Very good point. We should get you therapy." He finally smiled back at her.

"So, us being girlfriends and all," He rolled his eyes and grinned at that and she laughed at him. "Please, do tell how he pulled off getting you to talk to him." He was thinking of how she'd avoided him for months, refusing to talk.

She swatted the back of his head. "He found me in a biker bar, hunting. After looking like he would cheerfully rip the place apart, he told me he would drag me out if he had to and that if I was leaving him, that was fine, but he was coming too."

_Damon let out a bark of laughter, trying to picture it. The idea that Elijah would ever come down off of that high horse of his was hilarious. A biker bar? Really? That Elena could reduce the dignified vampire to chasing after her was even funnier. At least Damon wasn't the only one she could confuse._

_He also noticed that it only took nearly letting her kill him to be acknowledged with best friend status. He should've armed her with a stake years ago._

From the porch, Elijah called, "Elena, if you and your friend are done playing in the yard, perhaps you'd both like to come in so we can plan?" He sounded like a frustrated parent, but he was smiling at them both.

"I haven't told him yet. We'll be right there." Elena called back, unruffled and grinning at his tone.

"Plan?" Damon turned on Elena.

"Yeah. We ran into some trouble. I thought you and Stefan might want in on what Elijah and I are thinking. And extra hands would be great."

Elena told him about the ambush and Elijah's battle with the werewolves.

"Oh, HELL NO!" Damon, like Elijah, was wondering what would've happened if she had been alone.

After the three of them sat down and discussed what they could do and options available, Damon suggested that they include Caroline, Stefan and Bonnie in the planning. _After all, the more the merrier, right?_

Three days later Elijah was talking with Jeremy and his wife about what they would need. He had half a dozen "unofficial" hackers at his disposal at any time, but using Suzette's skills were more comprehensive because of her security clearance. She had spent the last ten years working as a counter hacker for the government. Once she'd been the best for the other side, breaching government firewalls for fun as a teenager. Now she worked with the Washington D.C. rather than against them to stop people with skills like hers.

With her help, they could get details that they wouldn't get any other way. Asking her to do this was touchy, and Elijah had introduced the subject with an understanding that she could refuse at any time. But the girl was eager to help it seemed. For that he was thankful.

Across the room, Elena met his eyes and something glittered there.

"Elijah?" _Jeremy had said something? What had he missed?_

"Yes?" Jeremy grinned, catching his brother in law's line of sight.

"Um….you trailed off. You were going to say something about specs and locations?"

"Oh, yes, my apologies." He gave Jeremy and Suzette the details about what he was looking for.

_He couldn't think when Elena looked at him like that... Since when could he not finish a conversation?_

He found her watching him again, and walked away from someone asking him a question without responding and didn't know he'd done it.

The heat in her gaze was something new between them and he needed to be close to her when she looked at him that way. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, Carolyn and Damon arguing over some detail across from her. Without a word, Elijah took her hand and led her out of the room. They got as far as around a corner before Elijah pushed her up to the wall and spread her hands wide against it, pressing himself against her so that his hips lifted her off the ground. Instead of kissing her, he pushed his face into her hair. His lips near her ear.

"You will need to stop doing that if you expect me to get anything done." He spoke through gritted teeth.

"Doing what, exactly?" Her question was all innocence, but he could hear the smile in her voice.

"You know." Still his words came out through gritted teeth.

"I would think I can look at my husband any time and way I want. And I have my own ideas for what you should be doing." _This was the answer she gave him. _

Still braced against the wall and him, she tipped her pelvis once, twice, and he trembled. He trembled in the arms of this woman. Impregnable she had called him once. And yet he trembled.

When exactly was this heat between them supposed to fade and they would become an old, staid married couple?

"Let's explore these ideas of yours, shall we?" Completely uncaring at this point about dignity or who might be watching, Elijah threw her over one shoulder and headed up the stairs.

In the kitchen, Damon and Caroline watched as Elijah hauled Elena up the stairs. Elena looked like a rag doll over his shoulder, and Elijah's expression kept anyone from making a comment they would hear.

When they were gone, Caroline looked at Damon and said "Why do they get all the luck? Why can't any of the rest of us get that?"

Damon put his hand on hers on the table and said "Caroline, I'm touched. If you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask." She laughed and smacked his hand away.

"Seriously! Did you just see them? I'm surprised they got up the stairs."

"Things have been tense for the two of them. They deserve it." Was all Damon said.

They got about as far as closing the door. They were back where they left off in the garden room downstairs. Except now Elijah had both of Elena's hands held with one of his and was working his way up her blouse with the other one. His hand moved across her smooth skin and she gasped into his mouth. The sounds she made drove him on.

He had never known anyone so passionate, so open. He really didn't know how he had survived so long without her. He might have wealth, position, strength, speed, but she had the real power between the two of them as he saw it. She was the heart of him, of his home, his resting place, his passion. Although she was his and he knew it, he still found himself grateful that it was him she had chosen, even today, after so many years together.

Her legs came up around him, pulling him closer into her warmth.

"I think we need to get rid of some of these clothes." He put his hands under her blouse and pulled once, splitting the seams on both sides. It was sleeveless, fortunately. She giggled. He stepped away and she came to her feet. He did the same move with the pants she wore, and they fell in tatters around her.

"My turn." And she imitated his action, destroying a perfectly good silk shirt, pulling lightly on each of the sleeves until the seams gave. After loosening a belt, his pants joined hers in the pile on the floor in much the same condition.

He picked her up and tossed her lightly onto the bed meeting her there before she got comfortably settled. Looking down at her, rumpled and happy, he stopped and took her face into his hands.

"You are my world, Elena. I don't ever want to face another day without you." He was thinking of how he had felt when she was gone, only weeks ago. His heart was in his eyes as he spoke. Years of habitual self-defensive coldness and indifference always fell away with her. She would have none of it. And he liked to think that she had changed him, made him a better man than he had been without her. He did know that he loved more fiercely with her than he ever had in his long life.

Elena could see the cauldron in his eyes again. She saw love and need there and maybe a little uncertainty. "I need you, too. Always. I learned that I can't breathe without you. That won't ever happen again. I promise. I'll talk to you. Trust you."

As always, she knew his heart better than he did. She said just what he needed to hear. He wrapped her in his arms, close to this body of his that ached for her. Sitting, he put her on his lap, facing him and wrapped her legs around his waist. Ever so slowly he lowered her body onto his, watching her eyes widen, expand it seem, as heaven itself seemed to surround him.

Much later, Elena smiled up at him. "I find you in the role of "commander" very…um…distracting."

"I find the way you look at me very distracting."

"I'll try to be good." She pouted.

"No you won't."

"You're right. I won't. I'll try to time it better. Will that help?" Elena conceded.

"Yes, I guess that would be an acceptable compromise, for now." Elijah kissed her one last time before leaving the room, to get back to work. They had been gone from the action for the better part of two hours and he was sure there had been progress.

As Elijah opened the door, he heard the others below. They had music and other sounds going to muffle their conversation, he assumed, but he heard just the same.

The click of something was the first thing he heard, and then Damon said, "Two hours and twelve minutes." They had a stop watch on them? Really?

Caroline's voice said "Good Lord. I would've married him too…" which resulted in laughter all around the table.

He would have to keep in mind that he had thrown his wife, their friend or sister, over his shoulder and taken her away with clear intent. Naturally they would be the source of conversation. He knew that they would not discuss it in front of him. There was a certain amount of formality about each of them, except for Jeremy -which he appreciated immensely-, in his presence. That kept them forever acquaintances to him. This was something he was accustomed to. They loved Elena. By default that made them his friends. Period. And that was enough.

Smiling to himself, he moved quickly enough to be standing behind Damon in the kitchen where all of them had gathered. He knew that when he tried, it could appear that he had materialized.

He took the watch from Damon's surprised hand and asked "Now, just to clarify, is this time from when we hit the stairs, or when the bedroom door closed?" He smiled.

The whole room had frozen for a moment, and then erupted in peals of laughter. He laughed too, something they didn't see often.

"And thank you, Caroline. Elena tends to take me for granted." He produced a warm smile just for Caroline, who blushed and smiled back at him.

There was some ribbing that followed and he laughed along with them.

Suzette stood and pulled him aside. "I think I found something you'll be interested in."

He knew they would've made progress by now. "Wonderful. Will you show me?"

He followed Jeremy's wife, her spiraled dark hair bouncing around her waist as she led him to his desk and the workstation she had been using. She shifted several screens so that they appeared simultaneously and began to explain what he was looking at.

"I took the list of people you gave me and started looking for common activity. It took a bit, but if I break these groups of people down to families, I find that they have some very mild credit card activity in one common place and time every other month. It's small things, no travel records, so I would assume that their entire families go and that they all travel privately. But the common thread is definitely there. The location they all have in common is a small town called Great Bend, Kansas."

Elijah was impressed. "You are very good at what you do, aren't you, Suzette?"

She smiled and green eyes twinkled at him saucily.

"Yes. I am." There was no pride in the statement, just fact.

"Can you tell me when they are due to meet like this again approximately?"

"I thought you would ask." She pulled up a flow chart and showed him that the probability was that they would meet the night before the full moon, a little over a month from then.

"Perfect." They had a little over a month to plan.


	13. Chapter 13

Suzette was still working at grasping the whole supernatural thing even after nearly three years with Jeremy. She would always have a hard time swallowing that Ric was a vampire. He was one of the sweetest men she had ever met. His love for Jeremy was there in her memory like a living thing. She had to fight tears every time she thought about him, actually. Losing him had felt like losing her own father.

When her brother in law, Elijah, had asked her to help them get rid of the people who were ultimately responsible for Ric's death, she had jumped at the chance. She would take down every firewall between here and Taiwan if she had to, to find what Elijah wanted to know.

Suzette was a hacker. Her boss told her once that's why they had sought her out. Evidently hacking a central mainframe for the Pentagon got you noticed….or arrested. Who knew?

She had grown from a little girl that hated Barbies, princesses and ballet lessons into a rebellious hearted young woman. One who resisted all that was "expected" and ached to destroy. Which made hacking almost second nature, really, and a perfect outlet.

The contrary nature was hidden behind soft features and a head of naturally ringletted dark hair that hung down her back. She had hazel green eyes and her mouth would easily twist into a smile or chew her bottom lip depending on how she her work was going. Or so Jeremy liked to tell her.

Her favorite part about her appearance was that she was frequently described by others as "pixielike". Because of this, people tended to underestimate her, which suited her just fine. Then they never saw her coming. The only one she was sure ever really got her was Jeremy Gilbert.

He had spotted her a mile away and still decided to wade in. Amazing. And she loved him as she never had anyone or anything. She and Jer had married a couple of years ago after he had worn down _her_ defenses. She really did have a loving heart, just deeply protected after a mother who died too young and a father whose primary concern was his single life while his little girl looked on, unnoticed.

Now she spent her days plowing through every effort people made to keep what they owned, wanted or needed safe with her twisted smile. Her mom always used to say "what's done in darkness will always be brought to the light." She took great pride in thinking of herself as the vehicle for that. She could reroute millions in the blink of an eye, and had, several times. She loved her job, she could write code in her sleep if she had to, and had frequently. Then, she spent her nights with the sweetest, most self-contained guy to walk the planet.

Her friends had thought she was crazy when she had started dating Jeremy. Her converse tennis shoes matched with dark dresses and a leather motorcycle jacket had been an interesting foil on their first date for his khakis and loafers. But they were good together and she had grown into adult clothes since then.

She had asked him once what in heaven's name had made him ask her out in the first place when they met in an English class at MIT. He had laughed, thumped her nose lightly and told her "I learned a long time ago to look deeper than the surface, Suz."

She learned the full extent of that statement when she found out that his entire "family" consisted of all things supernatural. He had told her a few months after they had started dating, but before he asked her to marry him. She had thought his sweet, gorgeous, and funny self had missed one too many doses of lithium. It had taken a meeting at Ric's house to prove her wrong.

Jeremy had obviously expected her to doubt his sanity. He had told her in the car on the drive from Massachusetts to Virginia for a Christmas visit. He had timed it well, really, because she had only a minute or two to wonder how crazy he was really, before they had been parked at his home in Mystic Falls. Inside Ric and Jeremy's friend Damon had been waiting.

She had met Damon Salvatore for the first time at their summer vacation on the 4th of July. He reminded her of the Ken dolls she used to happily mar when she was a little girl. He was too perfect, quite frankly, to be real. Like he had stepped off the cover of a GQ magazine to take a breath or something. The effect was eerie. He appeared to be maybe ten years older than she and Jeremy, but even then she had thought something wasn't quite "right" about him. When they had settled in the living room, drinking and laughing, Jeremy had suddenly looked at Damon and said "I need you to show her, Damon." He had nodded in Suzette's direction.

"Why in the world would you want your girlfriend to be terrified of me?" Had been the cryptic reply.

"It's either being afraid of you, or thinking I'm crazy. I already told her."

"You did WHAT?" Damon's blue eyes had narrowed at both of them. The first shivers of fear had started for her then. His expression was frightening, savage maybe.

"I love her, Damon. She'll have to know." This was the first she had heard about love, and her head had whipped around sending dark curls flying to take in Jeremy's expression. He swept her with a shy smile and hungry eyes before he turned back to Damon.

"Please."

The other man had come to stand in front of Suzette and squatted in front of her. Her eyes met his and she watched his face change. Dark angry veins became visible on his face around the sockets where his eyes glittered. The eyes themselves, always a cool blue changed by degrees very quickly to an angry, wildly savage red. He opened his mouth and she saw two sharp fangs where his canines had been.

Her gasp had been the only sound in the room, and punctuated her backward crawl up the back of the couch with both feet firmly planted in what was once her seat. Retreating to childhood protections, she crossed herself as her grandmother had taught her. She wasn't actually Catholic, but she did it anyway for good measure. Damon had laughed and the changes in his face faded.

"That wouldn't protect you, little girl. Rosaries either, so don't bother. But if it makes you feel any better, I don't eat people anymore." The threatening sounding words had been delivered with a sweet smile from Damon and anxious eyes studying her from Jeremy. Her brain seized on one word - "anymore".

The end result was a right-up-until dawn conversation in Jeremy's room about what he had seen, who he was and the entire list of people in his "family" and what they all were about. Even more disconcerting was finding out about Jeremy himself.

That was when he had talked to her about his ability to see spirits, ghosts, whatever. Suzette supposed the technical term was that he was a medium. He then told her about her mother, who had died when she was two years old from cancer. Belinda, her mom, had stayed close to look after her angry little girl. It had all been surreal, but there were things that Belinda had to say, through Jeremy, that left her with no doubts about the truth. Evidently Belinda had pushed Jeremy toward Suzette in the beginning. He had fallen for her, he said, but couldn't say anything until the whole story came out because of all the lying he refused to do. It turned out there were lots of things that Suzette started to understand that night.

Damon had been gone and not been seen again while she was still visiting that Christmas. She had appreciated that at the time, but understood now that this would've cost the older man on her account. This had been nearly three years ago and she had lost her fear of Damon, who could smile at her now and she didn't cringe in response. There were friendly conversations between them nowadays and Suzette found that he was actually pretty great in a sarcastic kind of way. It always felt like he was laughing at her. But he loved Jeremy and was a pivotal part of the family that had helped raise him after his parents died. Although she knew that others were plagued by the same "condition" in this little family unit Jeremy had going on, Damon would always be the only one she had ever actually seen and it had changed everything for her. In her mind, that made Damon special.

Her definitions for lots of things had shifted after that as quickly as Damon's face had shifted that night. The resulting focus had her sitting at her brother and sister in law's house three years later planning to kill werewolves for taking Ric from all of them.

Of all of the people in this nontraditional family she had married into, she liked Elijah best, next to Jeremy's sister Elena, of course. She related to Elijah's formality and the grudging respect he got from the others. It was as if he didn't quite fit in but was determined not to care. She could understand that on so many levels.

Jeremy told her once that Elijah was really the scariest of all of them, but she just didn't see it. Even when he had materialized in the kitchen and sent Damon into what looked like a heart attack earlier as they had all gossiped about him, Elijah wasn't scary, just surprising.

A week had passed since Elena had learned what their deadline was. She sat in Bonnie's living room, sprawled on the floor among dust and books and more dust. Bonnie had a monstrous library of information at her home that Elena took great joy in tackling.

Their first concerted efforts focused on identifying and neutralizing the witches employed by the Werewolf Council. It was easily assumed that their work and efforts would be their first line of defense considering they seemed to rely heavily on magic in general. Elijah assured the team that this was a sign that the Council had become complacent and arrogant to trust their enforcement to witches, rather than the raw power of their own. Even forcing Jack's pack to stay where they were put had been a good indication of the mind set the council used. They were more willing to pay or force someone to defend them than to defend themselves.

This weakness would be their undoing.

Along the way, Elena asked questions about the level of power she had seen Bonnie use in the grove at Damon and Stefan's home. Even if it had been ten years since the last time she had seen Bonnie cast a circle, that level of power was unusual for one person. When she asked, she ended up with her arms wrapped around her friend as she cried. It seemed that different families of witches were given their gifts, distributed evenly within a common umbrella of power. Some had their most concerted strength based in potions, enchantments or commands. Then the sources of their power were broken into families. Some pulled from natural phenomenon, lighting, earthquakes, weather. Some drew strength from emotion – fear, courage, hate or love. Bonnie, the last remaining member of the Bennett witches, was called an elemental witch. Her strength was drawn from the natural elements themselves giving her a more concerted strength all on its own. Usually a witch had one particular element that contributed most significantly to their strength. As Bonnie lost her grandmother and mother in the years after she discovered her power, she found that as a Bennett witch was lost, their element was distributed to the remaining witches left standing in the family. This left Bonnie able to pull the highest level of power from each of the five elements at will because she was the last.

When Elena had related these details to Elijah he had gasped aloud.

"What?"

"Do you realize how powerful that makes her, Elena?"

"No, not really, Elijah. I'm still trying to get my head around it."

"It means that she might be the strongest witch of her generation. My mother was a witch, in much the same position your Bonnie finds herself, except she drew strength from emotions, eventually all emotions. Her power twisted her, though, and she ended up creating what you and I are. Her power was vast enough that this single spell will stand until time ends. Now you're telling me that Bonnie is equally as strong. What a terrible responsibility for one young woman to carry." Elena sat thinking about that for a very long time.

"We need to make sure that Bonnie is never identified as a contributor to this thing we're doing. The last thing she needs is to become a household name among our enemies."

Elijah smiled to himself, proud at Elena's wisdom and insight. "Agreed."

XXXXXXXXXX

Caroline and Elena were sparring in the back yard.

The group had spent the weeks fate had given them preparing for what was to come. They knew now that the council meetings happened at the city hall building after hours in Great Bend. Blueprints for the city hall in Great Bend had been stolen and poured over. They knew the fastest and most direct paths of escape, both for themselves, if necessary and that would be used by the council members. They were able to gather information about how the council guarded the building while the meetings happened. They were also able to find the identities of three witches working for the council and work out a neutralizing strategy. It was sure that the three witches would inevitably be present at every council meeting. Also, through Jack, they could confirm when the meeting would take place without any doubt or supposition.

Damon was rolling through his own part to play in his mind while watching Caroline and Elena with sightless eyes.

Elijah came to join him, taking a seat on the step below him.

"I never got a chance to thank you for what you did for her." Elijah was looking out at Elena as she moved from one drill to the next without pausing.

"It was nothing." Damon knew that Elijah was talking about the night of the explosion. He shrugged a careless shoulder, uncomfortable with where this conversation might be going.

"No. I would have to disagree." Elijah turned to look Damon in the eyes then. "You might have saved her life when I couldn't. I don't know whether she would've been able to survive that if you hadn't been there. That means everything to me."

Damon looked back at Elijah searching for the trap in this conversation, and found none.

"I would do it again, for her."

"I know you would. She's lucky to have you. We both are." Elijah turned and looked back at the ladies again. "I had thought after her accident that she would be easier to keep alive. But she still manages to challenge my abilities at every turn to do that." Again he looked at Damon. "It's nice to have back up I can trust." He smiled then.

Damon found himself smiling back at Elijah without meaning to. "Yeah, well, she wouldn't be Elena if she didn't have a crazy suicidal streak."

They were laughing together when Elena noticed them. Holding up a hand to halt Caroline, she called across the courtyard, "Hey, guys. I don't think I like the looks of this. The two of you together can't possibly bode well for me." They both laughed again. A moment later Elijah stood and went back into the house.

XXXXXXXXXX

The group would leave in time numbered by hours now, rather than days or weeks. Elena felt sure they were ready for anything, and still her stomach clenched at the thought of anyone she loved getting hurt. Fortunately at least Jeremy and Suzette would be safe. They would be waiting at Elena and Elijah's home for word of what happened. Two less people for her to worry about.

Over the last couple of days, she had noticed that Elijah had virtually withdrawn completely into himself. No one else would've noticed anything wrong, but his distance was also present with her. This worried her, mainly about his state of mind. When she found him sleeping on top of the covers of their bed, she laid down beside him, wrapped her arms around his torso and moved skillfully and quietly into his subconscious mind.

The door made no sound as it swung open, but the air was split with battle cries and the clash of metal and bone. She looked down at her feet and found that her shoes were stained with blood. Elijah told her once that he didn't dream anymore, that it had stopped a long time ago. Evidently stress could trigger his dreaming again.

Then she saw him. She realized she was seeing Elijah from long ago. He was younger, perhaps twenty and his hair was longer, matted, and his clothing consisted of a thick wool tunic covered by what appeared to be crude armor of some sort. There were three men converging on him. He held a large sword in both hands over his head swinging with all of his might. As he swung, he caught one of the men in the face with the blade blinding him. The other two dodged back, one tripping over the other fallen man. Elijah sprung and sunk the blade into the second man's chest. The third swung out, too far from his own body and when his weapon struck Elijah's defensive move the weapon was dislodged from his hands and sent flying, landing at her feet. Elijah easily ended the third man and the battle continued to rage around them. But his attention had been caught by the sound of surprise she had made when the crude sword landed at her feet. He was looking straight at her now, and although he seemed to recognize her if his expression was any sign, he couldn't know that she had invaded his dream unless she told him so. Still, he looked annoyed with her.

When he spoke, it took a moment for her to realize that he was speaking some other language, but she understood him just the same. "You continue to interrupt me. Why do you insist on that?"

Well, she understood the words, just not what he meant. "I um….."

He reached out a bloody hand and pulled at the edge of her t-shirt. She was wearing the same t-shirt and jeans she had been wearing when she laid down beside him on the bed. "And why do you always wear these strange clothes when you appear? A woman in breeches is scandalous." But he was smiling.

_She opened her mouth and closed it again. She didn't understand at all._

"Will you tell me your name this time?" _He didn't know her name?_

"You've seen me here before?" _At least she was able to speak again._

"Many times. Usually right before a battle. You don't remember?" He took her hand and led her away from the clashes to sit at the edge of the field.

"No. I'm sorry. I don't."

"You probably won't remember this one either, then." His expression turned sad.

"But you always do?"

"Yes. Always." He said it quietly, to himself almost and was lost in thought for a moment.

"That troubles you."

"Yes. I think it does. I dream about you in the night and search for your face in the day, but you don't remember. That hardly seems fair." He touched her hair, just the ends for a moment, looking wistful.

She reached out and took his hand, holding it in hers, bloody or not.

"Will you help me understand?" _She knew she was prying and should stop this, but she was beginning to get a picture in her mind of what his words meant and needed to be sure._

He smiled then, looking at her hand and his entwined.

"My mother cast a spell. She said of all her sons, she worried about me as the eldest most. Her concerns were about my chances of finding a wife in this war. She wanted for me to see you, know your face when we finally meet. That was when you started popping into my dreams before a battle. You see, you are _mine_. And you are _so_ beautiful." The hand not already holding hers touched her face.

Elena got up and ran for the door like the hounds of hell were chasing her.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Elena opened her eyes to find Elijah's arms wrapped like steel around her. They were nose to nose. The eyes that searched hers were darkened with uncertainty.

"It seems you know everything now."

She pushed at his chest, intending only to be able to see him more clearly, but it got her nowhere. The steel of his arms gave not at all, tightening instead, but not enough to injure.

"No, don't pull away, Elena." There was pain there, in his voice.

She laid her head against his chest, wrapping her arms around him again. She closed her eyes thinking of the young man in that battlefield. He had been so young, so hopeful, so certain. Her heart ached for the young man that Elijah had been, lost in time forever. All she would ever know of him now were snippets of memories. So much time he spent waiting, waiting for her, while she was not yet even born. It was so unfair to him, and explained so much. And she wept for that brave young man with blood on his hands and hope in his eyes.

Elijah felt sure that his ribs would crack from the pressure of his heart breaking. His unconscious revelations had frightened her of him at last. Even now he held her as she cried. He had never intended her to know this piece of his history. The fact that he had deceived her about their meeting and his affection for her early on in their acquaintance would be the final straw. She thought he was honorable, honest, but he could not tell her this thing, couldn't tell her years ago when they came together, and would never have told her now. It would be a horror for a young woman to think that some monster had waited lifetimes for her to be born. He didn't want to be that monster. Even if it was true.

Elena had lived under the misconception that their meeting, all that had come before, was chance. But he had known her the moment he drew in her scent. So many others had worn her face. Tatia, Katarina, Anastasia and countless others had littered time with that face and he had at the very least met all of them. At first, he had thought the face would be his answer, but with Tatia, the first, he had found how wrong he could be. She was faithless and fickle. Then Katarina was deceptive and cruel. These were not hearts he could love, so he had kept looking. And the dreams continued, always before a battle. Always she would look at him, appearing lost, and he would melt. She was always so sweet and kind in those dreams that he knew she could not be cruel or faithless.

He began, then, to see that the clothing his lady appeared in had been an indicator to who she was as much as her features and frame. When ladies began to wear pants, as his lady did when she would appear, in the 1920's he had been thrilled. Little did he know then that he had still had another 70 years to wait before she would be born.

The day he met her at last, the dreams had stopped until this one, tonight. Another lie to Elena was that he didn't dream. He hadn't been willing to risk her efforts to see his dreams, rather than just fabricate one for him, for fear of what she'd find. This all now justified his fear.

He had stopped looking, honestly, the day that he had received the message from Trevor and Rose about their attempt to make peace and something he should see. Never had he expected to walk into that old, abandoned house and find his lady there, looking at him with wide frightened eyes. His every instinct that day had been to cart her away, after waiting so long, not for his brother at all, but for himself. When the Salvatores had taken her from him, he had been given time to think through how best to proceed. Force wouldn't get him her heart. He would have to earn that.

And so the dance had begun.

He remembered his horror at the Gilbert lake house when she had sunk a blade into her abdomen to get away from him. He had even dared her to do it, telling her he had to call her bluff. That was a mistake he never made again. After waiting so long, his own horror had echoed in his words, in his actions. His concern for her had nothing to do with Klaus' needs or desires and everything to do with his own. This was how she had so easily slipped under his defenses and sunk that blade into his chest that day.

He learned that day that she was not only lovely and kind, but also had a steel rod for a spine. She had strength that men ten times her size would never be able to match.

_His. She was his, damn it._

Elena felt the tension in him increase as she cried. He did not loosen his grip, holding her firmly against his chest. His breathing had stopped altogether. He would forget to breathe sometimes when he was very distressed. She had noticed this about him before only a handful of times. He didn't actually need the breath anymore, as all vampires didn't need it, but it was always unsettling when he would go completely still that way. She wanted to see him, see his eyes, his face, but when she again attempted to push away, he stopped her. He held her head against his shoulder and chest. Her tears had stopped, but he was so upset he wouldn't let her go. She turned her face into his neck, pulling in his warmth and his scent, uncertain how to comfort him. She found his neck warm and damp from her tears and kissed him there, licking away the salt. He moved against her for the first time, gasping in surprise at her lips against his skin.

_Fearing this might be the last time such intimacy would happen between them. Elijah bared his heart to her._

Sliding one hand up to cup the back of her head, he groaned. He pulled his head to one side and pressed her there against him, baring his throat for her. He was offering, and she moved without hesitation, kissing a line along his throat to where she could see and sense and smell his jugular pulsing beneath his skin.

Swiftly she opened her mouth wide and sank into him. So many emotions at once swamped her as the rhythm of her heart paused, stuttered and began to match his. Love, pain, shame, frustration and fear all fell in on her at once. It was like standing on the beach during a tidal wave with crest after crest forcing you under and up again for another round. Although they had done this since the night Elijah came after her, for the first time it was as if a window had opened into him, allowing her to see clearly.

Elijah's hips lifted off of the bed as she pulled from the wound. His rumbling groans filled the room as she sank into his heart and his body responded. Without even being aware, he loosened the steel bands that held her to him and writhed beneath her, surrendering completely.

He thought he was a monster and that she would finally recognize it now, too. He thought she would want away from him after seeing that he had lived thousands of years waiting for her, like some dark villain in a horror movie. He had lied to protect the spell his mother had cast, certain of Elena's rejection if she knew that they belonged together and that she hadn't any real choice in the matter. It was fated and unavoidable, even. He also believed she would rebel against that, against him, now that she knew.

She also saw the reason for his withdrawal from her over the last day or so. He was concerned about the coming battle and the lives of her friends and family. Having initiated the battle and drawn the lines, he felt responsible and feared her pain if someone should get hurt because of his failure. With his family, acceptance was always based on performance. Now, with Elena, the stakes seemed higher. He had never gone into a battle feeling he had so much to lose before.

She broke the connection and tipped her head back in the hand that loosely held her against him. Her mouth still red from his blood, she hovered over him, waiting for him to open his eyes. When he did he found her looking at him with tender eyes. She said "This changes nothing, Elijah. Nothing at all. I will never blame you for any what came before, or any of what is to come. We are partners in all of it now. We rise or we fall together tomorrow and every day after. Just as you said so long ago, I am yours." He had gone still, searching her eyes as if he didn't quite dare believe her.

"But I lied to you." He saw something flit across her face then. Pain.

"I know you did, Elijah. And it hurts. But I understand why you did what you did. You just underestimated me, that's all. It's forgiven. Gone. Just that simple." She shrugged. There would be no storing it away for future reference, future use against him. With her words, he knew he would never hear of it again. _ He had so much to learn from her._

_Amazing. Woman. His. Woman._

He took her face in his hands, looking up at her in wonder. When he was able to speak, all he said was "I don't deserve you."

She beamed at him. "Of course you do." Her tone was encouraging. "_Surely_ you must've been a very bad man at least once or twice in all those years…."

The group assembled a few hours later to leave and learned that Suzette had been successful in the small mission they had given her. Brave girl.

The three witches that worked to protect the Werewolf Council also owned a small shop in the outskirts of Washington D.C. Bonnie had worked day and night for two days to create a spell that would disarm those witches for forty-hours. The only problem they had was the only delivery had to be a human. A plain old average human. The spell required it, and the witches would've smelled anything inhuman from a mile away.

Suzette's answer to going into this on her own was a fist in the air and an emphatic "Humans rock!" punctuated with a grin. She had been thrilled to do something other than sit on her hands now that the computer research portion of the work was done.

Suzette wandered into the small magic shop in D.C. and opened her bag at the counter to pay for her purchases. When she did, dust flew up out of her bag, caught her unaware and made her sneeze three times, once for each of the witches. _They never even saw her coming._

Bonnie said the spell would work like a virus and by the time they arrived in Great Bend all three witches would be ill, and powerless. Bonnie was a genius.

And Bonnie also wasn't coming. After much argument, Elena had convinced their friend that if she was there, she would be putting herself at risk by revealing the level of her power to other witches. Even she knew that was dangerous. If any coven had any clue how strong she was, they would band together in their efforts to bring her down, fearing that the power at her hands would corrupt. It was a defense mechanism witches had set up for just such an occasion as Bonnie. As long as they knew nothing about her, she was safe.

But the whole thing made Bonnie angry. They were going to need her, was her argument. And she was right. So they found another way.

Elena and Bonnie had bonded together, much like the bond they had used during the explosive night in the woods. Bonnie would be able to see through Elena's eyes. Elena would be able to hear and understand her. If defensive magic was required, Bonnie would say it the spells. Elena would repeat them and Bonnie's presence, bonded to her friend, would make the magic work. But it still made her angry_. Her friends were risking their lives for one another, and she risked nothing._

At three AM, in a private portion of Richmond International Airport, Stefan, Caroline, Damon, Elijah, and Elena boarded a Boeing 737 Business Jet owned by Elijah. They followed a very private flight plan that would land them at the Great Bend Municipal Airport in approximately an hour and a half.

They left a very angry Bonnie standing on the tarmac with power popping around her even from the ends of her hair.

The strategy was to eliminate all of the council members in one night. They were able to estimate that the council itself had twenty seats. Some of the members had held their seats for decades. Jonah Walker had held his for an indeterminate period. Elena had suggested eliminating Jonah only, considering he was the leader, but Elijah shook his head. If they brought down the council leader, the council's only response could be a strike back on those responsible. Them. The resulting war would rage for decades and Elijah had seen just this sort of strategy fail many times. Better to do just as Elena had threatened Jack, eliminate the entire council and let the werewolves scatter to the wind in their disorganization. Her words that night had proven prophetic. This left them with little choice about the council members. The other group to consider would be the security team that would be guarding the meeting. They could leave no one alive. Not one.

And so the friends and family gathered one last time, again on tarmac, to finalize plans and split up. When their portion of the plan was finished, they would return to this spot and wait for the others. The plane would lift off no later than nine thirty am, one and a half hours after the council meeting was due to begin regardless of who had returned.

_Just thinking about the implications of that made Elena shiver with dread._

Each of them had a five square mile portion of the surrounding land around the courthouse to sweep in preparations. They each carried cell phones and would report to Elijah what they found. They were looking for indicators of werewolf activity, carcasses, large deep claw marks in trees or foliage and (_Elena shuddered again, but in disgust this time at the thought._) the inevitable marking of territory that wolves tend to do tracing each individual scent. The information would give them a good idea of how many of the werewolves present were able to transform before the full moon – an indicator of their strength and age. The information would also give them an idea of how strong their enemies would be when it came time for hand to hand confrontations, which were inevitable.

Their target was the council meeting scheduled for eight am at the Barton County Courthouse. The courthouse, centrally located in Great Bend was built in 1912 and suited the purposes of the council, and incidentally, Elijah, perfectly. Each of the great windows, numbering thirty one on each of four sides, was covered in ornate iron bars that sealed intruders out, and council members in. _A slow, wicked smile spread across Elijah's face at the thought._

Each of them had memorized the map of the area and the blueprints for the building. The council met on every other full moon on the nearest Sunday. The full moon was in two days. Most of the werewolves would be stronger than humans but would not be transforming because it was daylight, even if they were less hindered by the moon than others. The older the werewolf, the less they were limited by the phases of the moon. Some werewolves could live up to two, sometimes three hundred years possibly longer. Elijah's information suggested that Jonah Walker was one of these older, stronger werewolves. He was possibly the oldest and by reputation, he ruled the council with an iron fist. Regardless of his age, everything they could find suggested that no werewolf could transform without the power of the moon and the cover of darkness.

No time was wasted by any of them. They combed the area, gathering what information they could from the surrounding area, unseen by anyone. They were quiet, fast, thorough and Elijah was the lynch pin that held them all together as he also combed a five square mile stretch just as the others, stopping occasionally as his phone buzzed in his pocket. Elena found evidence of three separate wolves in her area. Two carcasses for one, a messy eater and a glutton. And two areas of urine markings. Each had a separate scent and she gathered samples so they could cross reference when they met again. Their conclusions after comparing would give a firm number of strong werewolves in and around that meeting. Slipping them into the bag at her waist, she kept moving. After several hours, the group gathered outside the city limits and brought the samples they had found comparing scent to be certain each represented a separate wolf. Three were eighteen in all that had recently transformed in this area.

The sun had been up for a while and the day was clear and bright. The group made their way toward the vast courtyard surrounding the Courthouse. They moved quietly, no conversation, no ribbing. Each of them understood what was at stake and took their role very seriously. The building was a massive four story structure made of stone with a pillar at each of four corners providing stability to the structure. The roof was flat with and met punctuated by the flat elevated tops of each of those same four pillars. The courtyard around the building, for half a mile in each direction lacked any real cover at all, decorated only with small trees and bushes, that and a parking lot. There were four doors in, one on each side and a single staircase that stretched from the underground level all the way to the roof. A single door opened to the roof. God bless early twentieth century architectural design and its simplicity.

Elena saw for the first time the iron bars covering each of those windows, and smiled.

The plan was simple. Caroline, Stefan and Damon were to take positions at each of the exits on the three sides of the building, north, south and east. The west side was the front entrance. At the signal Bonnie and Elena had arranged, Elijah would enter the front door and move through the building searching out the leader leaving Elena to guard the west entrance. Bonnie and Elena would force the others out the exits. Since there were an unknown number of staff and security, and the faceless twenty council members, they would not be able to determine identities. Simply put, no one could pass. Elijah would eliminate the leader and sweep the building for stragglers. When the building was empty, they would sweep the grounds and track anyone that might have made it past them in any resulting confusion.

They approached quietly, moving across the ground swiftly, heading for their posts when the ground beneath their feet began to buckle and move. Elena felt the skin across her arms prickle.

Casting her eyes upward, she saw a lightning strike. Four people, one standing on each of the four pillars were looking down, hands cast skyward. They had backup for their witches. Damn it. They were phenomenon witches, using lightning, earthquakes to funnel their power. Bonnie was thinking they were strong and this could be very bad. They had thought when they eliminated the three in D.C. that the magic work was basically done. Not so.

In that moment, all hell broke loose on the ground around them.

Stefan, Caroline and Damon all three screamed in pain. Elena turned and found that each of them was burning in the light of the sun above them. Smoke was rising from blackened, wrinkling flesh and excruciating pain was punctuating every scream as they all three hit the ground writhing.

Elijah realized what was happening. "Their daylight rings have been neutralized!" He was running, attempting to cover Caroline, the closest to him.

Elena covered Damon and was reaching for Stefan. She had no cover to offer them, nothing to hide the people she loved from the destruction of the sun.

Echoing in her ears, she heard Bonnie for the first time. She was shouting, at the top of her lungs. "Elena, Cedo cessi cessum!" "Elena, Yield." Elena dropped her hands and stood. And for a time, she knew no more.

Elijah watched his beloved Elena erupt in flames like the wick of a candle. Yellow and white heat licked up her clothing, across her hair, wrapping her completely for a moment while he screamed in horror. "ELENA, no!"

She turned to him then. The flames opened up as she took a single step toward him and she put a single finger over her lips. Her eyes were no longer brown or red. They were golden, popping with power. She turned to the three on the ground and held a single hand palm up in the air. "Nox." A darkened ball hovered over her hand. She slapped her two hands together and the darkness seemed to splatter like water and spray the three on the ground.

Damon realized the pain had stopped. Darkness had enveloped him like a warm cloak, sucking the light away so that the rays of the sun wouldn't reach his skin anymore. The other two had quieted as well. He could see them through his own darkness. They appeared as if standing in a black whole, void of light. He could see around him, but his eyes were sharper, penetrating the darkness around him first. He saw Elena then, wrapped in fire, wearing it like a flowing gown stretching from her shoulders to pool around her feet on the ground, singeing where she walked. Her hair had worked free of the braids she wore and whipped in the wind created by the fire all around her. Damon's horrified knee jerk reaction was that she was burning up in the sun, then he recalled the day in the courtyard when she had taken off her ring for him. Looking more closely, he saw Bonnie's eyes looking back at him. Bonnie's eyes looking at him out of Elena's features Was. Just. Creepy.

Elena's body turned to the witches standing on their pedestals above the courthouse. She burned a path across the courtyard with her approach and the ground shook under her feet as the four above attempted to gather strength for a second attack, but now Bonnie was angry. Both hands before her, she seemed to scoop some of the fire she wore together to hold in one hand. She knelt, whispering "Terra" as a handful of stone and dirt lept into her palm from the ground the other witches were punishing with their earthquakes. She rolled the two hands together, one with earth, the other with fire together in her hand like a child making a mud ball and tossed it up into the air, once, twice. With the third it seemed to blow up and away disappearing into the clouds above the building that had not been there a moment before.

A few hundred yards away, molten fireballs began to rain from the sky onto the roof of the courthouse. The ground continued to rumble below them, but now it was punctuated with screams.

Bonnie felt a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing that those damned witches weren't on their pedestals anymore. She could still see them, even though they were no longer displayed for all the world. They couldn't hide from her. The light around them lent her its eyes.

Elijah approached Elena's body cautiously from behind. He had never seen a witch possess someone before, but with the bond that she and Elena had established, he supposed it was possible. Terrifying, but possible. His heart had nearly stopped in horror. He heard Elena's voice saying "Aeris." As she made a small fist in the air and pulled toward her chest.

Bonnie ripped the air from the lungs of her enemies. The four witches on the roof were no more. The shaking stopped, as did the molten rain. The darkness faded around Stefan, Caroline and Damon. Their daylight rings were working again.

Bonnie stepped back, and Elena had her own eyes again. And her legs gave way. Elijah caught her before she hit the ground.

_**Author's note:**_

_**I thought it might be of interest to know that Great Bend, Arkansas is a real place. On the map, it's situated between two lakes and the town resembles a canine dog's hind leg. It's also centrally located in the United States and a small, unassuming town. I decided that if I was Jonah Walker, the geography of the place would appeal for those private Were Council meetings.**_

_**The courthouse, including its description and floor plan is also real. I'm nothing, if not thorough. **_


End file.
